Is the species flock concept operational? The Antarctic shelf case.
There has been a significant body of literature on species flock definition but not so much about practical means to appraise them. We here apply the five criteria of Eastman and McCune for detecting species flocks in four taxonomic components of the benthic fauna of the Antarctic shelf: teleost fishes, crinoids (feather stars), echinoids (sea urchins) and crustacean arthropods. Practical limitations led us to prioritize the three historical criteria (endemicity, monophyly, species richness) over the two ecological ones (ecological diversity and habitat dominance). We propose a new protocol which includes an iterative fine-tuning of the monophyly and endemicity criteria in order to discover unsuspected flocks. As a result nine « full » species flocks (fulfilling the five criteria) are briefly described. Eight other flocks fit the three historical criteria but need to be further investigated from the ecological point of view (here called "core flocks"). The approach also shows that some candidate taxonomic components are no species flocks at all. The present study contradicts the paradigm that marine species flocks are rare. The hypothesis according to which the Antarctic shelf acts as a species flocks generator is supported, and the approach indicates paths for further ecological studies and may serve as a starting point to investigate the processes leading to flock-like patterning of biodiversity.
UMR 7138 UPMC-MNHN-CNRS-IRD Systématique, Adaptation, Évolution, Département Systématique et Évolution, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CP 39, Paris, France. lecointr@mnhn.fr
Guillaume
G
Lecointre
Nadia
N
Améziane
Marie-Catherine
MC
Boisselier
Céline
C
Bonillo
Frédéric
F
Busson
Romain
R
Causse
Anne
A
Chenuil
Arnaud
A
Couloux
Jean-Pierre
JP
Coutanceau
Corinne
C
Cruaud
Cédric d'Udekem
Cd
d'Acoz
Chantal
C
De Ridder
Gael
G
Denys
Agnès
A
Dettaï
Guy
G
Duhamel
Marc
M
Eléaume
Jean-Pierre
JP
Féral
Cyril
C
Gallut
Charlotte
C
Havermans
Christoph
C
Held
Lenaïg
L
Hemery
Anne-Claire
AC
Lautrédou
Patrick
P
Martin
Catherine
C
Ozouf-Costaz
Benjamin
B
Pierrat
Patrice
P
Pruvost
Nicolas
N
Puillandre
Sarah
S
Samadi
Thomas
T
Saucède
Christoph
C
Schubart
Bruno
B
David
D000818:Animals; D000864:Antarctic Regions; D044822:Biodiversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D005399:Fishes / Q000502:physiology*; D011156:Population Density