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Niche differentiation, reproductive interference, and range expansion - PubMed

Niche differentiation, reproductive interference, and range expansion

Gregory F Grether et al. Ecol Lett. 2024 Jan.

Abstract

Understanding species distributions and predicting future range shifts requires considering all relevant abiotic factors and biotic interactions. Resource competition has received the most attention, but reproductive interference is another widespread biotic interaction that could influence species ranges. Rubyspot damselflies (Hetaerina spp.) exhibit a biogeographic pattern consistent with the hypothesis that reproductive interference has limited range expansion. Here, we use ecological niche models to evaluate whether this pattern could have instead been caused by niche differentiation. We found evidence for climatic niche differentiation, but the species that encounters the least reproductive interference has one of the narrowest and most peripheral niches. These findings strengthen the case that reproductive interference has limited range expansion and also provide a counterexample to the idea that release from negative species interactions triggers niche expansion. We propose that release from reproductive interference enables species to expand in range while specializing on the habitats most suitable for breeding.

Keywords: Odonata; behavioural interference; ecological niche model; ecological release; habitat suitability model; niche breadth; niche overlap; niche similarity; reproductive interference; species distribution model.

© 2023 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1

Conceptual diagrams. Upper left: illustration showing that one species' niche (grey ellipse) could overlap the niches of all other species in the group by being (a) especially broad or (b) close to the group centroid (multivariate average). Lower left (c): map depicting the shared geographic extent of two species (within the dashed lines), with red and black symbols representing occurrence records. Right: hypothetical examples of ENM suitability values projected to (d) geographic space and (e) environmental space for two species. For illustration purposes, the environmental space consists of two variables and 16 environments (colours) and the geographic space consists of 144 locations. Each environment is represented by one cell in environmental space and by multiple cells in geographic space. The numbers in the cells represent suitability values. Green environments have higher suitability for species 1 and blue environments have higher suitability for species 2, but the species have the same distribution of suitability values and therefore the same niche breadth in environmental space (B env ). Green environments are more common on the geographic landscape than blue environments, and thus species 1 has greater niche breadth than species 2 in geographic space (B geo ). Niche breadth was calculated with Levin's normalized niche breadth equation (B2).

FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2

Occurrence maps for all species of rubyspot damselflies (Hetaerina spp.) within the range of H. titia, separated into (a) northern and (b) southern groups to facilitate viewing. The inset map in (b) is a close‐up view of Costa Rica and Panama. Points for H. titia were plotted on top of the other species' points in (a) and the inset map. Occurrence records were thinned to a minimum separation distance of 25 km for plotting. Inset photos: (a) female H. americana hunting; (b) mating pair of H. cruentata. Mapped with Albers equal‐area conic projection for North America using R package ‘sf’ version 1.0‐13. Photo credits: G.F. Grether.

FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3

Occurrence maps for all species of Calopteryx within the range of H. titia. Points for H. titia were plotted on top of the other species' points. Upper photo: female H. titia. Lower photo: female C. maculata. Photo credits: G.F. Grether. For mapping details, see Figure 1.

FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4

Principal component analysis of environmental variation among the occurrence records of 18 species of calopterygid damselflies within the geographic range of H. titia. Left panels: arrows representing the principal component loadings of the environmental variables. Right panels: probability ellipses encompassing 68% (1 standard deviation) of the occurrence records. Key to variable names: diurnal temperature range (BIO2), annual temperature range (BIO7), mean temperature of wettest quarter (BIO8), precipitation seasonality (BIO15), precipitation of warmest quarter (BIO18), precipitation of coldest quarter (BIO19), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI).

FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5

Frequency polygons of niche similarity in environmental space for different groupings of calopterygid damselfly species. (a) Species pairs that include H. titia versus all other species pairs. (b) Sympatric species pairs versus allopatric species pairs. (c) Species in the same genus versus species in different genera (i.e., Hetaerina and Calopteryx). Niche similarity was estimated from Maxent ENMs in the full geographic extent using index I env (results for index D env were similar). To remove sample‐size effects, the null mean I env was subtracted from the observed I env , and thus values farther below 0 on the horizontal axis represent species pairs with lower niche similarity. Differences less than ~−0.15 were significant with the identity test (Table S4).

FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6

Comparisons between H. titia and other species of calopterygid damselflies in the shared extents (i.e., rectangular areas of geographic overlap). (a) Niche breadth in environmental space (B env ) estimated from separate Maxent models for each shared extent. (b) Proportion of the shared extents occupied (1 km2 resolution). The dashed lines have a slope of 1, and thus points above (below) the lines are cases in which H. titia had a larger (smaller) value than the other species.

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