Is the Species Flock Concept Operational? The Antarctic Shelf Case

Guillaume Lecointre (1) , Nadia Améziane (2) , Marie-Catherine Boisselier (3) , Céline P Bonillo (4) , Frederic Busson (5) , Romain Causse (6) , Anne Chenuil (7) , Arnaud Couloux (8) , Jean-Pierre Coutanceau (9) , Corinne Cruaud (8) , Cédric d'Udekem d'Acoz (10) , Chantal de Ridder (11) , Gaël Denys (12) , Agnès Dettaï (3) , Guy Duhamel (13) , Marc Eléaume (12) , Jean-Pierre Feral (14) , Cyril Gallut (3) , Charlotte Havermans (10) , Christoph Held (15) , Lenaïg G. Hemery (12) , Anne-Claire Lautrédou (3) , Patrick Martin (16) , Catherine Ozouf-Costaz (3) , Benjamin Pierrat (17) , P. Pruvost (18, 12) , Nicolas Puillandre (3) , Sarah Samadi (19) , Thomas Saucède (17) , Christoph Schubart (20) , Bruno David (17)

1 MNHN - Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
2 BOME - Biologie des organismes marins et écosystèmes
3 SAE - Systématique, adaptation, évolution
4 TC - Taxonomie - Collections
5 HEI - Hautes Etudes d’Ingénieur [Lille]
6 UAPV - Unité mixte de recherche Ecologie des invertébrés
7 Station Marine d'Endoume
8 GENOSCOPE - Genoscope - Centre national de séquençage [Evry]
9 AIRE - Adaptation, Intégration, Réticulation et Evolution
10 RBINS - Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
11 ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles
12 BOREA - Biologie des Organismes et Ecosystèmes Aquatiques
13 Département Milieux et Peuplements Aquatiques
14 DIMAR - Diversité, évolution et écologie fonctionnelle marine
15 AWI - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung = Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research = Institut Alfred-Wegener pour la recherche polaire et marine
16 LCFC - Laboratoire de Conception Fabrication Commande
17 BGS - Biogéosciences [UMR 6282]
18 Laboratoire d'Ichtyologie générale et appliquée
19 Evolution Paris Seine
20 UR - Universität Regensburg

There has been a significant body of literature on species flock definition but not so much about practical means to appraise them. We here apply the five criteria of Eastman and McCune for detecting species flocks in four taxonomic components of the benthic fauna of the Antarctic shelf: teleost fishes, crinoids (feather stars), echinoids (sea urchins) and crustacean arthropods. Practical limitations led us to prioritize the three historical criteria (endemicity, monophyly, species richness) over the two ecological ones (ecological diversity and habitat dominance). We propose a new protocol which includes an iterative fine-tuning of the monophyly and endemicity criteria in order to discover unsuspected flocks. As a result nine « full » species flocks (fulfilling the five criteria) are briefly described. Eight other flocks fit the three historical criteria but need to be further investigated from the ecological point of view (here called « core flocks »). The approach also shows that some candidate taxonomic components are no species flocks at all. The present study contradicts the paradigm that marine species flocks are rare. The hypothesis according to which the Antarctic shelf acts as a species flocks generator is supported, and the approach indicates paths for further ecological studies and may serve as a starting point to investigate the processes leading to flock-like patterning of biodiversity.

Domains: Systematics, Phylogenetics and taxonomy; Bioinformatics [q-bio.QM]

Guillaume Lecointre, Nadia Améziane, Marie-Catherine Boisselier, Céline P Bonillo, Frederic Busson, et al.. Is the Species Flock Concept Operational? The Antarctic Shelf Case. PLoS ONE, 2013, 8 (8), pp.e68787. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0068787⟩. ⟨mnhn-02921889⟩