Paper 25- McNaughton 1970
McNaughton, S.J. and L.L. Wolf. 1970. Dominance and niche in ecological systems. Science 167:131-139
Blog Author: Angel Sumpter
Blurb Author: Brian J. McGill
- Macro-ecologist and faculty member at University of Maine.
- Researches how human-cause change can affect communities, ecology and biodiversity
- Has multiple book chapters on many topics including species abundance and biodiversity
Paper Author 1: S.J. McNaughton
- Focused on ecosystems and plant ecology
- Earned Ph.D. from University of Texas-Austin in 1964
- Many famous papers including: “ Rainfall and soils modify plant community response to grazing in Serengeti National Park”
Paper Author 2: L.L. Wolf
- Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in 1966
- Researched Behavior and ecology
- Known for many works including: “Genetic architecture of a wing size measure in Drosophila hibisci from two populations in eastern Australia”
Paper Summary:
- Main Question:
- Background History
- Dominance is the idea that certain species have a powerful control on the occurrence of other species. Not Much proof has risen to support the idea of dominance in relation to community diversity. Though it is obvious that species abundance and area vary, it is unknown how they relate to organization of communities.
- Goal
- Test to the relationship between relative abundance of species in a particular community to the generalization of the particular species.
- Methods
- Examine abundances as compared to Preston’s Model then comparing models to various plots such as environment and relative abundance in species. Errors were expected as data from these models need to be validated by using real systems. Making a validation test require two extra sources.
- Results
- Multiple results have been concluded from the data such as:
- Dominance is a characteristic of the most abundant species
- Dominant species have broader niches
- Species are added to the systems by compression of niches, expansion of an environment's carrying capacity or both
- Even most equitable sites have minimal community dominance.
- Conclusion
- The analyses provide substantial insight into organization of species and communities. While using data from regression analysis and correlation, they were able to tell they were close to making general statements on strongly associated variables.
I had a hard time understanding this paper. I appreciate the effort of the authors to present their ideas from different angles, but it was too dense for me. What I noticed is that, again, their models come from many assumptions for which the origins are not clear, so it is hard for me to understand where their conclusions came from. The idea that more generalist species are more likely to become dominant seems logical enough, however, is being generalist really a limitation for diversity? I think about Tropical forest or coral reefs, the " niches" and resources are so abundant, that being a generalist doesn't seem to be a limitation for diversity, at least not in the way I am thinking about it (which might be completely wrong due to my lack of understanding of the models they propose).
ReplyDeleteEarlier this semester, we had a discussion about how the terms "generalist" and "specialist" are not very useful. I like that McNaughton and Wolf suggest that maybe all species are specialists. This suggests a specialist continuum, with many levels of specialization/generalization, which is more realistic, I think, than simply calling a species a generalist.
ReplyDeleteI also had a hard time understanding this paper and I agree that some of their assumptions are hard to follow. Nonetheless, from what I understood, I think it is a great theoretical and empirical work that covers some of the questions that are still important and unsolved in community ecology. I was specially intrigued by their discussion on the population genetic bases for niche evolution, where initial population size and spatial structure will result in differential specialization (although I wonder what could be the reasons for those differences in first place).
ReplyDeleteI agree with Laura that this was a dense paper to read. One point that really struck me as odd and out of place was the discussion of genetics and alleles at the end of the paper. It seems that they used general assumptions for this part of the paper and not the same data that they worked with earlier. The paper also seemed to be missing a concluding section that really tied everything together. Given that they approached so many different angles within their research, a better final conclusion tying everything together would have been nice.
ReplyDeleteRepeating what others have been saying, this was a very dense read with many ideas. The ideas are important but because they are important ideas I think they could have improved this by breaking it down into different papers and developing a more concentrated conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI got lost in most of the jargon reading this paper, there was a lot to wrap your head around. I thought it was interesting how compressing a niche would spawn species.
ReplyDeleteI’m still not quite sure what dominance refers to- it seems like it has something to do with how successfully competitive you are and how well you can exclude others from a niche. Also, i was not sure how to relate an octave to anything, so was not really sure what the figures meant. Overall a difficult paper, but the blurb at the beginning made it a bit easier.
ReplyDeleteIn some degree, all species are specialists to fill the niche as they evolve and coexist with other species in the same community. Most of them are dictated by the environmental variables that would restrict the abundance in the larger area. Throughout the evolutionary, there are scenarios that specialists can become generalists and vice-versa. These patterns are commonly observed in parasitological studies. This paper covers a wide range of models and possible predictions that some are theoretical and observatory. I enjoyed reading this paper.
ReplyDeleteThis paper was really hard to read. We did talk about generalist and specialist in class awhile ago so it would be really helpful to talk about that again in the context of this paper. The math section, which is 70% of this paper, was so hard to follow. But I do appreciate that they recognize that their correlation coefficients were so small they cannot get a causal relationship. Some papers we have read ignore the small coefficients and just make conclusions.
ReplyDeleteSo I definitely forgot to write my own comments into my blog... but I too had a really hard time reading this paper. I had to reread this paper a couple of times and I still don’t think I understood it fully. This kinda annoys me because I feel like this could have been a really cool paper if I actually understood it.
ReplyDelete