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Claremont Colleges

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1989

Antilles

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Patterns Of Species Co-Occurrence In The Antillean Bat Fauna, Donald A. Mcfarlane Jan 1989

Patterns Of Species Co-Occurrence In The Antillean Bat Fauna, Donald A. Mcfarlane

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

The bat fauna of 25 Antillean islands is presented as a species presence-absence matrix, and used to construct a large population of randomized null-model matrices by Monte-Carlo simulation techniques. Comparison of the observed data matrix with the randomized population reveals a statistically significant departure from randomness which is interpreted as evidence of community structure. The Antillean bat fauna is marked by a pattern of high species co-occurrence, with endemics dominating in the northern Antilles and undifferentiated South American taxa dominating in the southern Antilles. The 'checkerboard' distributions which have been identified in the bird populations of some tropical archipelagos are …