The dominance-diversity dilemma in animal conservation biology

Martin, C. A., Watson, C. J., de Grandpré, A., Desrochers, L., Deschamps, L., Giacomazzo, M., Loiselle, A., Paquette, C., Pépino, M., Rainville, V., Rheault, G. et Proulx, R. (2023). The dominance-diversity dilemma in animal conservation biology. PLoS ONE, 18 (3). Article 0283439. ISSN 1932-6203 DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0283439

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Résumé

Abstract

The alteration of environmental conditions has two major outcomes on the demographics of living organisms: population decline of the common species and extinction of the rarest ones. Halting the decline of abundant species as well as the erosion of biodiversity require solutions that may be mismatched, despite being rooted in similar causes. In this study, we demonstrate how rank abundance distribution (RAD) models are mathematical representations of a dominance-diversity dilemma. Across 4,375 animal communities from a range of taxonomic groups, we found that a reversed RAD model correctly predicts species richness, based solely on the relative dominance of the most abundant species in a community and the total number of individuals. Overall, predictions from this RAD model explained 69% of the variance in species richness, compared to 20% explained by simply regressing species richness on the relative dominance of the most abundant species. Using the reversed RAD model, we illustrate how species richness is co-limited by the total abundance of a community and the relative dominance of the most common species. Our results highlight an intrinsic trade-off between species richness and dominance that is present in the structure of RAD models and real-world animal community data. This dominance-diversity dilemma suggests that withdrawing individuals from abundant populations might contribute to the conservation of species richness. However, we posit that the positive effect of harvesting on biodiversity is often offset by exploitation practices with negative collateral consequences, such as habitat destruction or species bycatches.

Type de document:	Article
Mots-clés libres:	Animals Biodiversity Biology Ecosystem Adult Animal community Animal experiment Animal model Article Conservation biology Destruction Female Habitat Male Nonhuman Prediction Species richness Animal
Date de dépôt:	26 avr. 2026 15:21
Dernière modification:	26 avr. 2026 15:21
Version du document déposé:	Version officielle de l'éditeur
URI:	https://depot-e.uqtr.ca/id/eprint/12831

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