Spatial geometry of amphibian distribution in Alabama, USA

Abstract

Characterizing species distribution at a large scale is important for understanding community structure and for strategic conservation at large scales. Species population distribution allows for characterization of emergent species structure and some interesting geometric features in nature follow a power law. In this study, the distances to nearest neighbor among thousands of historical locality records of subpopulations from 60 amphibian species in 12 families at Alabama, USA were studied using a computational approach to characterize their spatial geometry. The results indicated that the distances to the nearest subpopulations follow a power-law distribution and that the nearest neighbors formed similar triangles in the distribution of subpopulations for the majority of amphibian species. The results may provide a new understanding of amphibian spatial structure from a geometric perspective and these geometric characteristics may have implications for ecological conservation of declining amphibians at a large scale.