From Rapoport’s areography to 30 years of macroecology: A synthesis of the Argentinian contribution
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25260/EA.21.31.1.0.1134Keywords:
biogeography, Rapoport’s Rule, species richness, corology, bibliometric review, scientometricsAbstract
Since the appearance of Areography and the consolidation of macroecology in the ‘80s, research focused on the general laws that govern the distribution of organisms on the planet has increased markedly. Eduardo Rapoport has left a legacy in Argentina and in the world. We ask to what extent Argentinian ecologists incorporate the macroecological approach, interact with foreign researchers, are inserted in the international level and what are the main focuses of their studies. We searched for articles in Scopus containing the words macroecología, areografía, macroecology and areography, and Argentina in the affiliation. We found 253 articles that show that, with a decade of delay, the number of macroecological articles published by Argentinian authors over time increases with a trend similar to the global one. Currently, 30 citations are made to Areography per year in international studies. Most of the Argentinian authors published a maximum of two articles, while the minority published between 3 and 22, suggesting that the increasing trend is based on eventual contributions rather than on research programs on macroecology. Most of the Argentinian articles focused on the study of distribution areas, geographic species ranges and their patterns and species richness. The most studied taxonomic group was that of invertebrates, likely explained by Argentinian macroecology idiosyncrasy. In 70% of the studies, the correspondence author was Argentinian, suggesting a leading role. The journals in which Argentinian manuscripts were published most frequently matched with those where international papers were published. Argentina is clearly inserted in international macroecology; the establishment of regular programs with a macroecological focus is a relatively vacant area plenty of possibilities for its expansion.
References
Aria, M., and C. Cuccurullo. 2017. bibliometrix: An R-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis. Journal of Informetrics 11:959-975. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2017.08.007.
Blackburn, T. M., and K. J. Gaston. 2002. Macroecology is distinct from biogeography. Nature 418:723-723. https://doi.org/10.1038/418723b.
Borcard, D., P. Legendre, and P. Drapeau. 1992. Partialling out the spatial component of ecological variation. Ecology 73:1045-1055. https://doi.org/10.2307/1940179.
Brown, J. H. 1984. On the relationship between abundance and distribution of species. The American Naturalist 124:255-279. https://doi.org/10.1086/284267.
Brown, J. H. 1995. Macroecology. University of Chicago Press.
Brown, J. H. 1999. The legacy of Robert MacArthur: from geographical ecology to macroecology. Journal of Mammalogy 80:333-344. https://doi.org/10.2307/1383283.
Brown, J. H. 2017. Eduardo Hugo Rapoport (1927-2017): Argentina’s special gift to ecology and biogeography. Mastozoología neotropical 24:269-271.
Brown, J. H. 2019. The genesis of macroecology: In memory of Brian Maurer. Global Ecology and Biogeography 28:4-5. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12845.
Brown, J. H., and B. A. Maurer. 1989. Macroecology: the division of food and space among species on continents. Science 243:1145-1150. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.243.4895.1145.
Cadotte, M. W., K. Carscadden, and N. Mirotchnick. 2011. Beyond species: functional diversity and the maintenance of ecological processes and services. Journal of Applied Ecology 48:1079-1087. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2011.02048.x.
Ceccarelli, S., S. A. Justi, J. E. Rabinovich, J. A. F. Diniz Filho, and F. Villalobos. 2019. Phylogenetic structure of geographical co-occurrence among New World Triatominae species, vectors of Chagas disease. Journal of Biogeography 47(6):1218-1231. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13810.
Cueto, V. R., and J. L. de Casenave. 1999. Determinants of bird species richness: role of climate and vegetation structure at a regional scale. Journal of Biogeography 26:487-492. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.1999.00299.x.
de Moraes Weber, M. 2018. Panorama da macroecologia brasileira. Oecologia Australis 22:104-116.
Faith, D. P. 2002. Quantifying biodiversity: a phylogenetic perspective. Conservation Biology 16:248-252. https://doi.org/10.4257/oeco.2018.2202.01.
Farji-Brener, A. G., and A. Ruggiero. 1994. Leaf-cutting ants (Atta and Acromyrmex) inhabiting Argentina: patterns in species richness and geographical range sizes. Journal of Biogeography 21:391-399. https://doi.org/10.2307/2845757.
Fergnani, P. N., and A. Ruggiero. 2017. The latitudinal diversity gradient in South American mammals revisited using a regional analysis approach: The importance of climate at extra-tropical latitudes and history towards the tropics. PLOS ONE 12:e0184057. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184057.
Filloy, J., G. A. Zurita, and M. I. Bellocq. 2019. Bird diversity in urban ecosystems: the role of the biome and land use along urbanization gradients. Ecosystems 22:213-227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-018-0264-y.
Fisher, H. J. 2002. Macroecology: new, or biogeography revisited? Nature 417:787-787. https://doi.org/10.1038/417787c.
Folgarait, P. J., O. Bruzzone, S. D. Porter, M. A. Pesquero, and L. E. Gilbert. 2005. Biogeography and macroecology of phorid flies that attack fire ants in south‐eastern Brazil and Argentina. Journal of Biogeography 32:353-367. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2004.01177.x.
Gaston, K. J., and T. M. Blackburn. 1999. A critique for macroecology. Oikos 84:353-368. https://doi.org/10.2307/3546417.
Gaston, K. J., and T. M. Blackburn. 2000. Macroecology: pattern and process. Blackwell, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470999592.
Hawkins, B.A. 2001. Ecology's oldest pattern? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16:470. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(01)02197-8.
Hijmans, R. J., S. E. Cameron, J. L. Parra, P. G. Jones, and A. Jarvis. 2005. Very high-resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology: A Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 25(15):1965-1978. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1276.
Hoorn, C., J. M. Guayasamin, H. M. Ortega Andrade, and E. Bonaccorso. 2019. Celebrating Alexander von Humboldt’s 250th anniversary: Exploring bio-and geodiversity in the Andes (IBS Quito 2019). Frontiers of Biogeography 11.2:e44178. https://doi.org/10.21425/F5FBG44178.
Humboldt, A. V., and A. Bonpland. 1807. Ideen zu einer Geographie der Pflanzen nebst einem Naturgemälde der Tropenländer. Tübingen, Germany.
Kent, M. 2005. Biogeography and macroecology. Progress in Physical Geography 29:256-264. https://doi.org/10.1191/0309133305pp447pr.
Lang, D., and G. Chien. 2018. Wordcloud2: Create Word Cloud by 'htmlwidget'. R package version 0.2.1. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=wordcloud2.
Lawton, J. H. 1999. Are there general laws in ecology? Oikos 84:177-192. https://doi.org/10.2307/3546712.
Lomolino, M. V., R. Riddle, and R. J. Whittaker. 2017. Pp. 730 in M. A. Sunderland (ed.). Biogeography. Fifth edition. Oxford University Press.
Lomolino, M. V. 2020. Biogeography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
MacArthur, R. H., and E. O. Wilson. 1967. The theory of island biogeography. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780198850069.001.0001.
MacArthur, R. H. 1972. Geographical ecology: patterns in the distribution of species. Princeton University Press.
Marquet, P. A. 2002. The search for general principles in ecology. Nature 418:723-723. https://doi.org/10.1038/418723c.
McGill, B. J. 2019. The what, how and why of doing macroecology. Global Ecology and Biogeography 28:6-17. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12855.
Monjeau, J. A., E. C. Birney, K. Ghermandi, R. S. Sikes, L. Margutti, and C. J. Phillips. 1998. Plants, small mammals, and the hierarchical landscape classifications of Patagonia. Landscape Ecology 13:285-306. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008012613305.
Moreno Azócar, D. L., M. G. Perotti, M. F. Bonino, J. A. Schulte, C. S. Abdala, and F. B. Cruz. 2015. Variation in body size and degree of melanism within a lizards clade: is it driven by latitudinal and climatic gradients? Journal of Zoology 295:243-253. https://doi.org/10.1111/jzo.12193.
Nori, J., R. Loyola, and F. Villalobos. 2020. Priority areas for conservation of and research focused on terrestrial vertebrates. Conservation Biology 34(5):1281-1291. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13476.
O'Brien, E. 1998. Water-energy dynamics, climate, and prediction of woody plant species richness: an interim general model. Journal of Biogeography 25:379-398. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.1998.252166.x.
Ojeda, R. A., P. G. Blendinger, and R. Brandl. 2000. Mammals in South American drylands: faunal similarity and trophic structure. Global Ecology and Biogeography 9:115-123. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2000.00167.x.
Outomuro, D., and F. Johansson. 2019. Wing morphology and migration status, but not body size, habitat or Rapoport's rule predict range size in North-American dragonflies (Odonata: Libellulidae). Ecography 42:309-320. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.03757.
R Core Team. 2019. R: A language and environment for statistical computing R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL: www.R-project.org.
Rabinovich, J. E., and E. H. Rapoport. 1975. Geographical variation of diversity in Argentine passerine birds. Journal of Biogeography 2:141-157. https://doi.org/10.2307/3037987.
Rangel, T. F., J. A. F. Diniz-Filho, and L. M. Bini. 2010. SAM: a comprehensive application for spatial analysis in macroecology. Ecography 33:46-50. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2009.06299.x.
Rapoport, E. H. 1975. Areografía: estrategias geográficas de las especies. México, MX: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Rapoport, E. H. 1982. Areography: geographical strategies of species. New York: Pergamon Press.
Rapoport, E. H. 2015. Aventuras y desventuras de un biólogo latinoamericano. FHN, Fundación de Historia Natural Félix de Azara.
Rapoport, E. H., E. Ezcurra, and B. Drausal. 1976. The distribution of plant diseases: a look into the biogeography of the future. Journal of Biogeography 3:365-372. https://doi.org/10.2307/3037978.
Rodríguez, P., F. Villalobos, A. Sánchez-Barradas, and M. E. Correa-Cano. 2017. La macroecología en México: historia, avances y perspectivas. Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad 88:52-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmb.2017.10.006.
Ruggiero, A. 1994. Latitudinal correlates of the sizes of mammalian geographical ranges in South America. Journal of Biogeography 21:545-559. https://doi.org/10.2307/2845657.
Ruggiero, A., J. H. Lawton, and T. M. Blackburn. 1998. The geographic ranges of mammalian species in South America: spatial patterns in environmental resistance and anisotropy. Journal of Biogeography 25:1093-1103. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.1998.00253.x.
Ruggiero, A. 2001. Interacciones entre la biogeografía ecológica y la macroecología: aportes para comprender los patrones espaciales en la diversidad biológica. En J. L. Bousquets and J. J. Morrone (eds.). Introducción a la Biogeografía en Latinoamérica: Teorías, Conceptos, Métodos y Aplicaciones. Fac. Ciencias, UNAM, México, D.F.
Ruggiero, A., and B. A. Hawkins. 2008. Why do mountains support so many species of birds? Ecography 31:306-315. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0906-7590.2008.05333.x.
Ruggiero, A., J. H. Lawton, and T. M. Blackburn. 1998. The geographic ranges of mammalian species in South America: spatial patterns in environmental resistance and anisotropy. Journal of Biogeography 25:1093-1103. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.1998.00253.x.
Schrodt, F., M. J. Santos, J. J. Bailey, and R. Field. 2019. Challenges and opportunities for biogeography - What can we still learn from von Humboldt? Journal of Biogeography 461631-1642. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13616.
Stevens, G. C. 1989. The latitudinal gradient in geographical range: how so many species coexist in the tropics. The American Naturalist 133:240-256. https://doi.org/10.1086/284913.
Stevens, G. C. 1992. The elevational gradient in altitudinal range: an extension of Rapoport's latitudinal rule to altitude. The American Naturalist 140:893-911. https://doi.org/10.1086/285447.
Villalobos, F., A. Lira-Noriega, and P. Rodríguez. 2018. Is species geographic overlap constant across latitude? A homage to EH Rapoport. Oecologia Australis 22:144-155. https://doi.org/10.4257/oeco.2018.2202.04.
Werenkraut, V., and A. Ruggiero. 2011. Quality of basic data and method to identify shape affect richness-altitude relationships in meta‐analysis. Ecology 92:253-260. https://doi.org/10.1890/09-2405.1.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Paula N. Fergnani, Julieta Filloy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Authors retain their rights as follows: 1) by granting the journal the right to its first publication, and 2) by registering the published article with a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which allows authors and third parties to view and use it as long as they clearly mention its origin (citation or reference, including authorship and first publication in this journal). Authors can make other non-exclusive distribution agreements as long as they clearly indicate their origin and are encouraged to widely share and disseminate the published version of their work.
