Literature review
From a total of 744 title-based
selected articles, 31 showed at least one plot representing
abundance-environment relationships. Seven of these were line charts,
while the other 24 were scatterplots showing the cloud of points.
However, three of them were classified as unclear (Table S7, Appendix
S7). In 16 of the resulting 21 articles (76%), the point cloud in at
least one abundance-environment plot clearly showed a polygonal shape.
Studies with polygon-shaped patterns had larger sample sizes (ranging
from 13 - 1370) than articles without them (ranging from 10 – 91). Of
these 16 studies, only one used QR to estimate the relationship between
abundance and the environmental factor under study (Table S7, Appendix
S7). None of the articles mentioned the LoM . Polygon-shaped
patterns were found in terrestrial and marine vertebrates (6 studies)
and invertebrates (8 articles), as well as in freshwater and marine
algae (2 articles), across different biogeographical regions (Fig S7,
Appendix S7).