Is the Species Flock Concept Operational? The Antarctic Shelf Case
Figure 1
Protocol to use the five criteria of Eastman and McCune [17] to detect and evaluate species flocks.
The first three criteria (3 K) are the species diversity (« speciosity ») of the taxonomic component, its level of endemicity, and its monophyly. The two other criteria (2 K) are habitat dominance (in biomass) and ecological diversity. The modulation loop means that the geographical range and the taxonomic rank may have to be redefined in order to discover unsuspected flocks.