Macroecologia de mamíferos neotropicais com ocorrência no Cerrado

• Autor(a) principal: Vieira,Cleiber Marquez
• Data de Publicação: 2000
• Outros Autores: Diniz-Filho,José Alexandre Felizola
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Zoologia (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0101-81752000000400008
• topic: Macroecology; "Cerrado" mammals; geographic range size; ecological and evolutionary constraints; spatial and phylogenetic autocorrelation

The macroecological approach has been used recently to analyze correlations between ecological variables in large taxonomic groups, at continental scales. A positive relationship between body weight and geographic range size has been described as a poligonal space envelope form, that can be explained by ecological and evolutionary constraints. However, these variables can be disturbed by spatial and phylogenetic autocorrelation effects. In this work, the relationship between body weight and geographic range size was analyzed for 80 species of Neotropical mammals present in the Brazilian "cerrado". Spatial and taxonomic effects were tested using a linear trend surface analysis and an ANOVA (at level of order), combined in a generalized model. Around 61% of variation in geographic range size and 69% of variation in body weight in mammals of the "cerrado" can be explained simultaneously by spatial and taxonomic effects. The analysis of residuals of the generalized model showed that positive correlation between variables persist even after removing these effects. Thus, variation and covariation of traits in the mammals of the brazilian "cerrado" agree with the general macroecological pattern proposed for another taxonomic groups such as mammals, birds and snakes worldwilde.