Testing the maximum entropy theory of ecology in the warming meadow

Abstract

As global climate change responses are increasingly observed, theories in macroecology are being tested in order to up-scale species richness data to estimate extinction rates under habitat loss or degradation due to land use and climate change. Insight into effects that anthropogenic warming can have on subalpine meadow ecosystems has been of increasing interest and is the site used for this study of a macroecological theory. Over the past 21 years, many observational changes as a result of heating have been measured in the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory Warming Meadow. It is thought that the heated meadows are a disturbed ecosystem due to the responses to earlier snowmelt date such as changes in soil microclimate, flowering phenology, plant species composition, and soil organic carbon levels. To test the validity of the Maximum Entropy Theory of Ecology (METE) in disturbed and undisturbed sites, we calculated species area relationships (SARs) and species abundance distributions (SADs) for six plots. It was predicted that because there is evidence that the theory may fail in disturbed sites, that the heated plot SARs and SADs would not follow the predictions of METE. Contrary to our hypotheses, both the control and heated plots followed predictions made by the theory for both SAR and SAD. Possible conclusions are either that the heated plots may not yet be disturbed, the plots may already be adapted, or the theory may predict for disturbed as well as undisturbed sites.

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