Spatial turnover of species lies at the heart of macroecology and conservation biogeography. However, our knowledge of the causes of species turnover remains poor, particularly for herpetofaunas including amphibians and reptiles. Here, using regression, variance partitioning, and hierarchical partitioning analyses, we examine the relationships of species turnover in herpetofaunas among provinces in eastern China with respect to geographic distance and environmental difference. We found that species turnover in herpetofaunas is moderately to strongly correlated with geographic distance and difference in most environmental variables examined between provinces. Geographic distance and environmental difference together explain 87.1 and 89.9% of the variance of species turnover for amphibians and reptiles, respectively. Variance partitioning analysis indicated that most variance in species turnover is explained by the joint effect of geographic distance and environmental difference. Beyond this shared variance, environmental difference is a stronger predictor of species turnover than geographic distance, particularly for reptiles. Hierarchical partitioning analysis showed that energy-related variables explained more variance in species turnover for both amphibians and reptiles, compared with water-related variables. The independent effects of water-related variables are slightly higher for amphibians than for reptiles whereas the independent effects of energy-related variables are slightly higher for reptiles than amphibians. These patterns are consistent with different ecophysiological requirements of the two taxa. Our results have important implications for predicting changes in biodiversity of herpetofaunas under climate change scenarios. Global warming will affect the immigration and local extinction of both amphibians and reptiles, and precipitation change may affect amphibians more strongly, compared with its effect on reptiles.
With the fast increase of population and global environmental changes, it is a big challenge to ensure food security with shrinking cropland and limited resources in an environment鄄friendly way, which can maintain or even improve soil fertility, and protect environment. Recently, highlights have been shed on the integrated and efficient utilization of different cropping strategies including intercropping, which is on the edge of being abandoned in the farming systems. Intercropping, a land鄄use strategy of cultivating two or more crop species in the same pieces of land at the same time, is an old and traditional cropping practice. Generally, there are two main intercropping systems, i. e. , strip intercropping and relay intercropping, both of which are trying to make more efficient use of the available growth resources on the bases of the complementary utilization of growth resources by the component crops. These cropping strategies are still common practiced in the world especially in developing countries, such as China, India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The most common advantage of intercropping is the production of greater yield on a given piece of land by making more efficient use of the available growth resources using a mixture of crops of different rooting ability, canopy structure, height, and nutrient requirements based on the complementary utilization of growth resources by the component crops. More importantly, it also has other exclusive ecological functions, such as improving soil fertility through biological nitrogen fixation with the use of legumes, increasing soil conservation through greater ground cover than sole cropping, protecting more species by providing more habitats, and allowing lower inputs through reduced fertilizer and pesticide requirements, thus minimizing
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