PRIMARY RESEARCH PAPER
The role of niche measures in explaining the abundance–
distribution relationship in tropical lotic chironomids
Tadeu Siqueira
•
Luis Mauricio Bini
•
Marcus Vinicius Cianciaruso
•
Fabio Oliveira Roque
•
Susana Trivinho-Strixino
Received: 14 May 2009 / Revised: 18 August 2009 / Accepted: 7 September 2009 / Published online: 9 October 2009

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract The positive relationship between species
regional distribution and local abundance is one of
the most ubiquitous patterns in ecology. Among the
hypotheses proposed to explain the relationship, the
niche breadth and the niche position (or habitat
availability) hypothesis are the most investigated. An
unappreciated issue, but that is likely to be important
for the understanding the relationship is the nature of
variables used to estimate niche measures. Here, we
analyzed the form of this relationship in lotic
chironomid genera and tested whether niche mea-
sures estimated from local and landscape variables
explain the observed pattern. Analyses were based in
47 forested streams within Southeastern Brazil. From
our data set, we randomly partitioned the data in two
non-overlapping sets to estimate taxa distribution and
abundance (Distribution Data; n = 23 sites) and to
generate niche measures (Niche Data; n = 24). We
repeated that process 1,000 times, and for each one,
we generated niche breadth and position measures
using in-stream and landscape variables and esti-
mated abundance and distribution for each taxa. With
these, we estimated the relationship between both
abundance and distribution and niche measures using
ordinary least-squares regressions. We found no
relationship between niche position estimated from
local variables and local abundance nor regional
distribution. There was a negative relationship
between niche position estimated from landscape
and local abundance, and regional distribution. We
found a positive relationship between niche breadth
(local and landscape) and both local abundance and
regional distribution. When the relationship was
significant, both niche position and niche breadth
explained less than a half of total variation in
abundance and distribution. This suggests that not
only niche-based processes, but also other mecha-
nisms may be responsible for the abundance–distri-
bution relationship in lotic chironomids. A novel
finding of this study was that although there was
much unexplained variability around the relation-
ships, niche breadth was a better predictor of
abundance and distribution than niche position. We
suggest that future studies should investigate if spatial
Handling editor: David Dudgeon
T. Siqueira (&)
Programa de Po´s-graduac¸a˜o em Ecologia e Recursos
Naturais, Universidade Federal de Sa˜o Carlos,
PO Box 676, Sa˜o Carlos, SP, Brazil
e-mail: tsiqueira.bio@gmail.com
T. Siqueira
L. M. Bini
M. V. Cianciaruso
Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal de
Goia´s, Goiaˆnia, GO, Brazil
F. O. Roque
Faculdade de Cieˆncias Biolo´gicas e Ambientais,
Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados, Dourados,
MS, Brazil
S. Trivinho-Strixino
Departamento de Hidrobiologia, Laborato´rio de
Entomologia Aqua´tica, Sa˜o Carlos, SP, Brazil
123
Hydrobiologia (2009) 636:163–172
DOI 10.1007/s10750-009-9945-z

processes, like dispersal, together with environmental
processes affect interspecific abundance–distribution
relationships.
Keywords Abundance–occupancy relationship

Aquatic insects
OMI analysis
Tropical streams

Rarity
Introduction
One of the most extensively investigated large-scale
patterns in ecology is the relationship between
species local abundance and their regional distribu-
tion (Williams, 1960; Brown, 1984; Gaston &
Blackburn, 2000). In most cases, the relationship is
positive, i.e., locally abundant species tend to be
widespread (Gaston et al., 1997). This pattern is
stronger for marine than for terrestrial systems,
whereas the weakest relationships are found in
freshwater systems (Blackburn et al., 2006). How-
ever, it tends to hold despite variations in the way
data are gathered and analyzed (Gaston, 1994) and
the taxonomic group considered (e.g., Gaston et al.,
1998; Heino, 2005; Harcourt et al., 2005; Soininen &
Heino, 2005; Heino & Virtanen, 2006).
Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain
this relationship. These are mainly related to niche-
based mechanisms, metapopulation dynamics, range
position, and sampling artifacts related to phyloge-
netic and spatial non-independence (see Gaston et al.,
1997). The niche breadth hypothesis (Brown, 1984)
and the niche position (or habitat availability)
hypothesis (Hanski et al., 1993; Venier & Fahrig,
1996) are among the most investigated with the latter,
receiving good support (Gaston & Blackburn, 2000).
In short, the former predicts that species occupying
broader range of habitats and exploiting diverse
environmental conditions and resources (i.e., wide
niche breath) would be able to occupy more places.
The latter hypothesis predicts that species utilizing
common and widespread resources (or habitats) in a
given region would be widespread and abundant.
Some studies have demonstrated positive correlations
between niche breadth and distribution, although few
have demonstrated positive correlation between niche
breadth and abundance (Gaston et al., 1997).
The niche of a species can be defined as the
environmental conditions that allow this species to
satisfy its minimum requirements, so that birth rate of
a local population is equal to or greater than its death
rate (Hutchinson, 1957; Chase & Leibold, 2003). For
freshwaters, environmental characteristics of the
water body (e.g., water flow and chemistry) are
believed to be closely linked to the characteristics of
the surrounding landscape (Frissell et al., 1986;
Wiens, 2002). According to Poff’s (1997) landscape
filter concept, environmental factors act to determine
the occurrence and abundance of species at different
spatial scales. That is, to be part of a local commu-
nity, species in the regional pool must have appro-
priate characteristics to ‘‘pass’’ through the nested
filters (Poff, 1997). Therefore, one could hypothesize
that niche properties measured at the local and
landscape levels would provide similar explanations
for the abundance–distribution relationship.
Most studies on the relationship between distribu-
tion and abundance were developed in temperate
regions and focused on terrestrial ecosystems (see
Blackburn et al., 2006). An investigation on tropical
freshwater organisms would certainly contribute to
reduce system (and, indirectly, taxonomic) biases and
to unravel the role of the mechanisms proposed to
account for the relationship. Aquatic chironomids
(Chironomidae: Diptera) are a useful group for
exploring the abundance–distribution relationship
due to their ecological importance as well as to
applied aspects. Besides representing one of the most
species-rich and abundant group in most aquatic
environment, chironomids also present a range of life
history that differs markedly, for example, in life-
span, locomotion, feeding habits, and physiological
tolerance to oxygen deficit (Pinder, 1986).
It has been demonstrated that some assemblage
patterns hold for different taxonomic resolutions on
stream macroinvertebrates (e.g., species, genus, and
family levels: Marchant et al., 1995; Lenat & Resh,
2001; Melo, 2005). Similar to species distributions,
the distribution of higher taxa seems to be related to
environmental and spatial variables as well (Murphy
& Davy-Bowker, 2005). The reliability of the higher-
taxa approach to detect general ecological patterns
depends on how species within higher taxa respond to
environmental gradients. If their responses are corre-
lated, ecological patterns (e.g., abundance–distribu-
tion relationship) can be detected independently of
the taxonomic resolution. Having this in mind, one
could expect that the abundance–distribution
164 Hydrobiologia (2009) 636:163–172
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