BIOL 215 Lecture Notes - Soil Fertility, Transpiration, Terrestrial Ecosystem
11 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
A classic question in ecology first posed by andrewartha and birch in 1954 is what is the relationship between species distribution and abundance. The pattern shows that most species have fairly small range sizes and that fairly few species have large range sizes. This pattern can be seen for birds, plants, or even animals, all showing the same distribution. Rapoport"s rule shows that geographic range size of particular taxa increases with latitude. What that shows is that in low latitude regions, range size of mammals tend to be small and in high latitude regions, range size of mammals is almost a factor of 10 larger, so much greater range. Range size on a map is really looking at the geographic area that encompasses the perimeter of a species" habitats. Rapoport"s rules don"t apply to all species or situations. Topography (mountains vs. lowlands) interacts with latitude in affecting range size.
