Biodiversity -- it's in the water(er system or in fact any network at all....)

Date:5/9/2008

er system, or in fact, any network at all. All that's needed are the geomorphology of the landscape and an estimate of average dispersal behavior and habitat capacity. This model is general enough that it could be used to explore population migrations or epidemics of water-borne diseases in addition to biodiversity patterns. The researchers plan to extend their work to explore the extent to which simple hydrology can act as the determining factor in a wide range of biodiversity patterns.

These results are a powerful reminder of the overarching importance of water, and the water-defined landscape, in determining patterns of life, notes Princeton professor Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe. It provides a framework that could be used to connect large scale environmental changes to biodiversity. Changes in precipitation patterns, perhaps due to global climate change, could be mapped to changes in habitat capacities in the model, ultimately providing a way to estimate how climate change would alter large-scale patterns of biodiversity. It could also be used for an assessment of the impact of specific, local human activities, such as flow re-routing or damming, on the biodiversity patterns in a river network.

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Contact: Mary Parlange mary.parlange@epfl.ch 41-216-937-022 Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne Source:Eurekalert

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