Niche Overlap and the Assembly of Island Lizard Communities

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Abstract
On islands of the Sea of Cortez, sets of lizard species with low ecological overlaps occur significantly more often than is predicted on the basis of random assortment of colonists from the Baja California [Mexico] mainland. This result occurs regardless of which definition of overlap is chosen among several existing in the literature and occurs on both land-bridge and oceanic islands. One generating force that might yield this result is interspecific competition. Another possibility is that the same non-overlapping sets of resources occur on the islands and lizard species simply map this non-random distribution. In this regard certain low .alpha. species sets are statistically more common in the archipelago than other equally low .alpha. sets. This may reflect non-random resource distribution or species compatibility from interference competition.

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