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Frontiers of Biogeography Vol frontiers of biogeography vol. 3, nº 3 ‐ november 2011 the scientific magazine of the International Biogeography Society ISSN 1948‐6596 – freely available at http://www.biogeography.org/ frontiers of biogeography the scientific magazine of the International Biogeography Society volume 3, issue 3 ‐ November 2011 ISSN 1948‐6596 frontiers of biogeography is published by the International Biogeography Society (IBS), an international and interdisciplinary society contributing to the advancement of all studies of the geography of nature frontiers of biogeography is available online at the IBS website: http://www.biogeography.org/html/fb.html frontiers of biogeography aims to be a forum for biogeographers and a way to disseminate research in biogeography to the general public; our scope includes opinions, perspectives, and reviews, symposia proceedings, letters to the editor, book reviews, research upda‐ tes, interviews, and articles on how to teach, disseminate and/or apply biogeographical knowledge. Letters to the editor and symposium proceedings may include novel analyses of original datasets (see editorial instructions). Manuscripts should be submitted to frontiersof‐ [email protected]. Editorial enquiries should be made to the Editor‐in‐Chief at [email protected]. frontiers of biogeography uses a publication agreement based on the Creative Commons scheme to ensure that the authors retain full intellectual property (IP) rights on their work, and that this is freely available for any non‐commercial use. Under this agreement, the IBS retains only the copyright of the journal compilation under a Creative Commons Attribution Non‐Commercial No Derivatives (CCANCND) license. The authors have full IP over their texts under an universal Creative Commons Attribute License (CCAL), being able to distribute their work (including the original PDFs) actively from the day of publication, and passively from one year after (see the full license infor‐ mation at the end of the issue). you can find information about the International Biogeography Society at http://www.biogeography.org/; for the latest job announce‐ ments and other news please visit also the IBS blog (http://biogeography.blogspot.com/), and the IBS facebook group (http:// www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6908354463). editorial board editor‐in‐chief: deputy editors‐in‐chief: Joaquín Hortal – Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), Michael N Dawson – University of California, Merced, USA Spain and Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil Richard Field – University of Nottingham, UK associate editors: editorial assistant: Antje Ahrends – Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK Lauren Schiebelhut – University of California, Merced, USA Jan Beck – University of Basel, Switzerland Jessica Blois – University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA advisory board: Chris Burridge – University of Tasmania, Australia Miguel B. Araújo – Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), Marcus V. Cianciaruso – Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil Spain and Universidade de Évora, Portugal Markus Eichhorn – University of Nottingham, UK Lawrence R. Heaney – Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Roy Erkens – Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands USA Camilla Fløjgaard – Aarhus University, Denmark David G. Jenkins – University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA Dan Gavin – University of Oregon, USA Richard Ladle – Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Brazil and Oxford Matthew J. Heard – Brown University, USA University, UK David G. Jenkins – University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA Mark V. Lomolino – State University of New York, USA Frank A. La Sorte – Cornell lab of Ornithology, USA IBS V. P. for Public Affairs & Communications Richard Ladle – Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Brazil and Oxford University, UK Richard Pearson – American Museum of Natural History, USA Thiago F. Rangel – Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil Willem Renema – NCB Naturalis, The Netherlands Núria Roura‐Pascual – Universitat de Girona and Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya, Spain Spyros Sfenthourakis – University of Patras, Greece International Biogeography Society officers 2011‐2012 President: Lawrence R. Heaney First Past President: James H. Brown President Elect: Rosemary Gillespie Second Past President: Mark V. Lomolino VP for Conferences: Daniel Gavin Third Past President: Brett R. Riddle VP for Public Affairs & Communications: Michael N Dawson Fourth Past President: Vicki Funk VP for Development & Awards: George Stevens Fifth Past President: Robert J. Whittaker Secretary: Richard Field Treasurer: Lois F. Alexander Director‐at‐large: Catherine Graham Upcoming meeting host (ex officio): Kenneth Feeley Director‐at‐large: Kathy Willis Past Graduate student representative (ex officio): Matthew Heard Student‐at‐large: Ana M. C. Santos cover: Flowering red buglosses (Echium wildpretii, also named tajinastes rojos in Spanish) in front of Mount Teide (Tenerife, Canary Islands). Photograph by Ana M. C. Santos. news and update ISSN 1948‐6596 update Species–area curves and the estimation of extinction rates The species–area relationship (SAR) is one of the not surprising that SAR‐based estimates of extinc‐ longest‐known, most intuitive and empirically best tion have been welcome despite critical studies ‐proven patterns of biodiversity (Arrhenius 1921). that often found lower extinction rates than pre‐ Various authors determined theoretically that the dicted (e.g., Kinzig & Harte 2000). It was argued, SAR can be approximated as a power‐law function reasonably, that on top of imminent extinction in (i.e., S = cAz where S is species richness, A is area some species, others will be doomed to future and c and z are constants; Preston 1962, May extinction because of reductions in their popula‐ 1975, Harte et al. 1999), with z ≈ 0.25 in continen‐ tion size, and that this ‘extinction debt’ explains tal areas but higher when dispersal barriers are apparent misfits. Other sources of uncertainty of involved (e.g., ‘island species–area relationship’). the SAR‐based estimates are the (often false) as‐ Empirical data suggested lower z in continental sumption of a completely inhospitable matrix be‐ areas (0.13‐0.18) and values up to 0.35 for island tween remaining habitat patches (Koh & Ghazoul systems (Rosenzweig 1995). Dengler (2009) re‐ 2010) or the use of default slope values (z) in the cently came to the conclusion that the power law absence of system‐specific fitted data. fits empirical data best in most cases (see also He & Hubbell (2011) pointed out that a Dengler & Odeland 2010). Various authors ob‐ backward interpolation of SARs is a flawed con‐ served further systematic variations of z, such as cept of measuring extinction rates (see also Kinzig when considering spatial scale or sampling design & Harte 2000). This is because the area gain (Plotkin et al. 2001, Scheiner 2006, Tjørve 2006, needed to encounter the first individual of a new Dengler 2009). Kinzig & Harte (2000) pointed out species (which shapes the SAR) is always smaller the difference between SAR and the endemics– than the area loss needed to remove the last indi‐ area curve (EAR), which considers only species vidual. To show this, they formulated both as spa‐ endemic to a part of the region under analysis. So tially explicit sampling processes (SAR for first en‐ what could He & Hubbell (2011) report that was counters, EAR for last encounters). They con‐ so novel and generally relevant about SARs to cluded that SAR‐derived estimates of imminent merit recent publication in Nature? extinction will always be too high, unless individu‐ Since area seems always to affect biodiver‐ als are randomly distributed (i.e., no aggregated sity, no matter what taxon, system or scale, SARs occurrence of individuals within a species), which have frequently been used to estimate species is an unrealistic assumption. He & Hubbell (2011) richness loss resulting from anthropogenic habitat also showed that the EAR is a good predictor of destruction, i.e. extinction rates in a conservation empirical extinction rates even if no spatial aggre‐ context. The loss of a certain amount of area leads gation is modelled, which offers an alternative to fewer species existing in a region – at least (but a more challenging one) for estimating imme‐ some regional extinctions occur – and the shape diate extinction of endemics from area loss. of the SAR has typically been used to retrieve He & Hubbell (2011) clearly acknowledged quantitative estimates of how many species will that there is an anthropogenic extinction crisis go (regionally) extinct. and that habitat loss causes extinction. Further‐ Providing empirical evidence for the extinc‐ more, they did not claim that small population tion of a species is challenging and estimating ex‐ sizes of remaining species could not lead to fur‐ tinction rates across a community even more so ther, lagged extinction (in He & Hubbell’s view, (Ladle et al. 2011, this issue). Yet this is needed for EARs model only imminent extinction – and so do many conservation applications, such as schemes SARs, but wrongly). Despite this, He & Hubbell for offsetting biodiversity loss (Curran et al. 2011) (2011) already anticipated that pointing out this or, not least, for political argument. It is therefore error in estimating extinctions would not be frontiers of biogeography 3.3, 2011 — © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society 81 news and update greeted with enthusiasm among conservationists, Jan Beck and the correspondence on the paper (Evans
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