近日，中国科学院沈阳应用生态研究所王绪高研究员团队研究了森林中聚集与丰度共存的纬度尺度，这一研究成果于2025年2月26日发表在国际顶尖学术期刊《自然》上。

寻找植物群落空间结构和动态的简单原理是生态学中一个长期存在的挑战。尤其是在物种丰富的群落中，物种共存与植物空间分布之间的关系很难解决。

研究组对21个大型林地中720种树种的空间格局及其对物种共存的影响进行了全面分析。结果发现，丰度较低的物种往往比丰度较高的物种在空间上聚集得更多。此外，从热带森林到温带森林，这种负聚集-丰度关系的强度存在纬度梯度。研究组认为，根据最近的工作，动物种子传播和菌根联系的纬度梯度可能共同产生这种模式。

通过将观察到的空间模式整合到种群模型中，研究组从空间模式、人口统计学、生态位重叠和迁徙的角度得出了物种从低丰度入侵的条件。对所分析的720种树种的空间入侵条件的评估表明，温带和热带森林在相似程度上都符合入侵标准，但通过受其空间模式制约的对比策略。该方法为将观察到的空间模式整合到生态理论中开辟了新的途径，并强调了更详细地理解邻近尺度和多种生态过程中空间模式之间相互作用的必要性。

附：英文原文

Title: Latitudinal scaling of aggregation with abundance and coexistence in forests

Author: Wiegand, Thorsten, Wang, Xugao, Fischer, Samuel M., Kraft, Nathan J. B., Bourg, Norman A., Brockelman, Warren Y., Cao, Guanghong, Cao, Min, Chanthorn, Wirong, Chu, Chengjin, Davies, Stuart, Ediriweera, Sisira, Gunatilleke, C. V. Savitri, Gunatilleke, I. A. U. Nimal, Hao, Zhanqing, Howe, Robert, Jiang, Mingxi, Jin, Guangze, Kress, W. John, Li, Buhang, Lian, Juyu, Lin, Luxiang, Liu, Feng, Ma, Keping, McShea, William, Mi, Xiangcheng, Myers, Jonathan A., Nathalang, Anuttara, Orwig, David A., Shen, Guochun, Su, Sheng-Hsin, Sun, I-Fang, Wang, Xihua, Wolf, Amy, Yan, Enrong, Ye, Wanhui, Zhu, Yan, Huth, Andreas

Issue&Volume: 2025-02-26

Abstract: The search for simple principles that underlie the spatial structure and dynamics of plant communities is a long-standing challenge in ecology1,2,3,4,5,6. In particular, the relationship between species coexistence and the spatial distribution of plants is challenging to resolve in species-rich communities7,8,9. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of the spatial patterns of 720 tree species in 21 large forest plots and their consequences for species coexistence. We show that species with low abundance tend to be more spatially aggregated than more abundant species. Moreover, there is a latitudinal gradient in the strength of this negative aggregation–abundance relationship that increases from tropical to temperate forests. We suggest, in line with recent work10, that latitudinal gradients in animal seed dispersal11 and mycorrhizal associations12,13,14 may jointly generate this pattern. By integrating the observed spatial patterns into population models8, we derive the conditions under which species can invade from low abundance in terms of spatial patterns, demography, niche overlap and immigration. Evaluation of the spatial-invasion condition for the 720 tree species analysed suggests that temperate and tropical forests both meet the invasion criterion to a similar extent but through contrasting strategies conditioned by their spatial patterns. Our approach opens up new avenues for the integration of observed spatial patterns into ecological theory and underscores the need to understand the interaction among spatial patterns at the neighbourhood scale and multiple ecological processes in greater detail.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08604-z

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08604-z