Global analysis of the influence of environmental variables to explain ecological niches and realized thermal niche boundaries of sea snakes.
Understanding the factors affecting species distributions is a central topic in ecology and biogeography. However, most research on this topic has focused on species inhabiting terrestrial environments. At broad scales, abiotic variables consistently serve as primary determinants of species' di...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2024-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310456 |
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| author | Carlos Patrón-Rivero Luis Osorio-Olvera Octavio Rojas-Soto Xavier Chiappa-Carrara Fabricio Villalobos Brooke Bessesen Kevin López-Reyes Carlos Yañez-Arenas |
| author_facet | Carlos Patrón-Rivero Luis Osorio-Olvera Octavio Rojas-Soto Xavier Chiappa-Carrara Fabricio Villalobos Brooke Bessesen Kevin López-Reyes Carlos Yañez-Arenas |
| author_sort | Carlos Patrón-Rivero |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Understanding the factors affecting species distributions is a central topic in ecology and biogeography. However, most research on this topic has focused on species inhabiting terrestrial environments. At broad scales, abiotic variables consistently serve as primary determinants of species' distributions. In this study, we investigated the explanatory power of different abiotic variables in determining the distribution patterns of sea snakes on a global scale. Additionally, as the boundaries of realized thermal niches have significant implications for the ecology of species and their geographic distributions, we evaluated the asymmetry of realized thermal limits (i.e., differences in variances between the upper and lower limits of the realized thermal niche). We obtained 10 marine environmental variables from global databases along with >5000 occurrence records for 51 sea snake species in 4 genera across the group's entire known geographic range. Using these data, we employed correlative ecological niche modeling to analyze the influence of the individual variables in explaining species' distributions. To estimate the realized thermal limits of each species, we extracted the mean, minimum, and maximum temperature values at four depths (superficial, mean benthic, minimum benthic, and maximum benthic) for each occurrence record of the species. We then evaluated the asymmetry of the realized thermal niche by measuring and comparing the variances in the upper and lower limits. Both analyses (the importance of variables and realized thermal limit asymmetry) were performed at three taxonomic levels (sea snakes as a lineage of marine-adapted elapids [true sea snakes + sea kraits], subfamily, and genus) and two spatial resolutions. Overall, we found that temperature, silicate, nitrate, salinity, and phosphate concentrations were the most influential factors in explaining the spatial distribution patterns of sea snakes, regardless of taxonomic level or spatial resolution. Similarly, we observed that the realized thermal limits were asymmetric, with a higher variance in the lower limits, and that asymmetry decreased as the taxonomic level and spatial resolution increased. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ff5f34b1b9ea4bd3b3776d941fd9f43e |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-ff5f34b1b9ea4bd3b3776d941fd9f43e2024-12-10T05:32:26ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032024-01-011912e031045610.1371/journal.pone.0310456Global analysis of the influence of environmental variables to explain ecological niches and realized thermal niche boundaries of sea snakes.Carlos Patrón-RiveroLuis Osorio-OlveraOctavio Rojas-SotoXavier Chiappa-CarraraFabricio VillalobosBrooke BessesenKevin López-ReyesCarlos Yañez-ArenasUnderstanding the factors affecting species distributions is a central topic in ecology and biogeography. However, most research on this topic has focused on species inhabiting terrestrial environments. At broad scales, abiotic variables consistently serve as primary determinants of species' distributions. In this study, we investigated the explanatory power of different abiotic variables in determining the distribution patterns of sea snakes on a global scale. Additionally, as the boundaries of realized thermal niches have significant implications for the ecology of species and their geographic distributions, we evaluated the asymmetry of realized thermal limits (i.e., differences in variances between the upper and lower limits of the realized thermal niche). We obtained 10 marine environmental variables from global databases along with >5000 occurrence records for 51 sea snake species in 4 genera across the group's entire known geographic range. Using these data, we employed correlative ecological niche modeling to analyze the influence of the individual variables in explaining species' distributions. To estimate the realized thermal limits of each species, we extracted the mean, minimum, and maximum temperature values at four depths (superficial, mean benthic, minimum benthic, and maximum benthic) for each occurrence record of the species. We then evaluated the asymmetry of the realized thermal niche by measuring and comparing the variances in the upper and lower limits. Both analyses (the importance of variables and realized thermal limit asymmetry) were performed at three taxonomic levels (sea snakes as a lineage of marine-adapted elapids [true sea snakes + sea kraits], subfamily, and genus) and two spatial resolutions. Overall, we found that temperature, silicate, nitrate, salinity, and phosphate concentrations were the most influential factors in explaining the spatial distribution patterns of sea snakes, regardless of taxonomic level or spatial resolution. Similarly, we observed that the realized thermal limits were asymmetric, with a higher variance in the lower limits, and that asymmetry decreased as the taxonomic level and spatial resolution increased.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310456 |
| spellingShingle | Carlos Patrón-Rivero Luis Osorio-Olvera Octavio Rojas-Soto Xavier Chiappa-Carrara Fabricio Villalobos Brooke Bessesen Kevin López-Reyes Carlos Yañez-Arenas Global analysis of the influence of environmental variables to explain ecological niches and realized thermal niche boundaries of sea snakes. PLoS ONE |
| title | Global analysis of the influence of environmental variables to explain ecological niches and realized thermal niche boundaries of sea snakes. |
| title_full | Global analysis of the influence of environmental variables to explain ecological niches and realized thermal niche boundaries of sea snakes. |
| title_fullStr | Global analysis of the influence of environmental variables to explain ecological niches and realized thermal niche boundaries of sea snakes. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Global analysis of the influence of environmental variables to explain ecological niches and realized thermal niche boundaries of sea snakes. |
| title_short | Global analysis of the influence of environmental variables to explain ecological niches and realized thermal niche boundaries of sea snakes. |
| title_sort | global analysis of the influence of environmental variables to explain ecological niches and realized thermal niche boundaries of sea snakes |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310456 |
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