Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

An Inordinate Fondness for Species with Intermediate Dispersal Abilities

View ORCID ProfileBen Ashby, View ORCID ProfileAllison K. Shaw, View ORCID ProfileHanna Kokko
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/644872
Ben Ashby
aDepartment of Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Ben Ashby
  • For correspondence: benashbyevo@gmail.com
Allison K. Shaw
bDepartment of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul MN, USA 55108
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Allison K. Shaw
Hanna Kokko
cDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Hanna Kokko
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

JBS Haldane is widely quoted to have quipped that the Creator, if one exists, has an inordinate fondness for beetles. Although Coleoptera may not be the most speciose order once Hymenopteran diversity is fully accounted for, as a whole the very clear differences in species diversity among taxa require an explanation. Here we show both analytically and through stochastic simulations that dispersal has eco-evolutionary effects that predict taxa to become particularly species-rich when dispersal is neither too low nor too high. Our models combine recent advances in understanding coexistence in niche space with previously verbally expressed ideas, where too low dispersal imposes biogeographic constraints that prevent a lineage from finding new areas to colonize (reducing opportunities for speciation), while too high dispersal impedes population divergence, leading to few but widely distributed species. We show that this logic holds for species richness and is robust to a variety of model assumptions, but peak diversification rate is instead predicted to increase with dispersal. Our work unifies findings of increasing and decreasing effects of dispersal rate on speciation, and explains why organisms with moderate dispersal abilities have the best prospects for high global species richness.

Footnotes

  • Restructured manuscript, revised figures and extended discussion.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted August 05, 2019.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
An Inordinate Fondness for Species with Intermediate Dispersal Abilities
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
An Inordinate Fondness for Species with Intermediate Dispersal Abilities
Ben Ashby, Allison K. Shaw, Hanna Kokko
bioRxiv 644872; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/644872
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
An Inordinate Fondness for Species with Intermediate Dispersal Abilities
Ben Ashby, Allison K. Shaw, Hanna Kokko
bioRxiv 644872; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/644872

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Evolutionary Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4231)
  • Biochemistry (9123)
  • Bioengineering (6769)
  • Bioinformatics (23971)
  • Biophysics (12110)
  • Cancer Biology (9511)
  • Cell Biology (13754)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7623)
  • Ecology (11678)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15495)
  • Genetics (10633)
  • Genomics (14312)
  • Immunology (9474)
  • Microbiology (22825)
  • Molecular Biology (9087)
  • Neuroscience (48922)
  • Paleontology (355)
  • Pathology (1480)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2566)
  • Physiology (3842)
  • Plant Biology (8322)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1468)
  • Synthetic Biology (2295)
  • Systems Biology (6183)
  • Zoology (1299)