Spatial scaling of microbial biodiversity

@article{citeulike:813974, abstract = {A central goal in ecology is to understand the spatial scaling of biodiversity. Patterns in the spatial distribution of organisms provide important clues about the underlying mechanisms that structure ecological communities and are central to setting conservation priorities. Although microorganisms comprise much of Earth's biodiversity, little is known about their biodiversity scaling relationships relative to that for plants and animals. Here, we discuss current knowledge of microbial diversity at local and global scales. We focus on three spatial patterns: the distance-decay relationship (how community composition changes with geographic distance), the taxa-area relationship, and the local:global taxa richness ratio. Recent empirical analyses of these patterns for microorganisms suggest that there are biodiversity scaling rules common to all forms of life.}, author = {Green, Jessica and Bohannan, Brendan J. }, citeulike-article-id = {813974}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2006.06.012}, journal = {Trends in Ecology \& Evolution}, keywords = {arisa, biogeography, diversity}, month = {September}, number = {9}, pages = {501--507}, posted-at = {2008-05-12 19:53:26}, priority = {2}, title = {Spatial scaling of microbial biodiversity}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2006.06.012}, volume = {21}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:813974 L3 - citeulike-article-id:813974 TI - Spatial scaling of microbial biodiversity JF - Trends in Ecology & Evolution VL - 21 IS - 9 SP - 501 EP - 507 N2 - A central goal in ecology is to understand the spatial scaling of biodiversity. Patterns in the spatial distribution of organisms provide important clues about the underlying mechanisms that structure ecological communities and are central to setting conservation priorities. Although microorganisms comprise much of Earth's biodiversity, little is known about their biodiversity scaling relationships relative to that for plants and animals. Here, we discuss current knowledge of microbial diversity at local and global scales. We focus on three spatial patterns: the distance-decay relationship (how community composition changes with geographic distance), the taxa-area relationship, and the local:global taxa richness ratio. Recent empirical analyses of these patterns for microorganisms suggest that there are biodiversity scaling rules common to all forms of life. KW - arisa KW - biogeography KW - diversity AU - Green, Jessica AU - Bohannan, Brendan PY - 2006/09// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2006.06.012 ER -