Altitudinal biodiversity patterns of seed plants along Gongga Mountain in the southeastern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

The mechanisms underlying elevation patterns in species and phylogenetic diversity remain a central issue in ecology and are vital for effective biodiversity conservation in the mountains. Gongga Mountain, located in the southeastern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, represents one of the longest elevational gradients (ca. 6,500 m, from ca. 1,000 to 7,556 m) in the world for studying species diversity patterns. However, the elevational gradient and conservation of plant species diversity and phylogenetic diversity in this mountain remain poorly studied. Here, we compiled the elevational distributions of 2,667 native seed plant species occurring in Gongga Mountain, and estimated the species diversity, phylogenetic diversity, species density, and phylogenetic relatedness across ten elevation belts and five vegetation zones. The results indicated that species diversity and phylogenetic diversity of all seed plants showed a hump‐shaped pattern, peaking at 1,800–2,200 m. Species diversity was significantly correlated with phylogenetic diversity and species density. The floras in temperate coniferous broad‐leaved mixed forests, subalpine coniferous forests, and alpine shrublands and meadows were significantly phylogenetically clustered, whereas the floras in evergreen broad‐leaved forests had phylogenetically random structure. Both climate and human pressure had strong correlation with species diversity, phylogenetic diversity, and phylogenetic structure of seed plants. Our results suggest that the evergreen broad‐leaved forests and coniferous broad‐leaved mixed forests at low to mid elevations deserve more conservation efforts. This study improves our understanding on the elevational gradients of species and phylogenetic diversity and their determinants and provides support for improvement of seed plant conservation in Gongga Mountain.

Sedimentary ancient DNA reveals a threat of warming-induced alpine habitat loss to Tibetan Plateau plant diversity

“…First, to maintain high total plant richness, nature conservation should focus on alpine habitats. This contrasts with the conclusions based on elevational gradients which suggest prioritizing forests 39 . Focusing on alpine areas will also help to protect richness within alpine plant families that contain many endemic taxa as a result of Quaternary glaciations and geographical isolation 40 .…”

Contrasting Floristic Diversity of the Hengduan Mountains, the Himalayas and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Sensu Stricto in China

“…Along elevational gradients, species richness for each life-form taxa presents a hump-shape curve across all three regions (see Figure 3). Such pattern was also discussed in the Gaoligong Mountain (Wang et al, 2007), the Gongga Mountain (Zu et al, 2019), the eastern Himalayas (Sharma et al, 2019), and other montane regions in the world (e.g., Quintero and Jetz, 2018). Usually, ecological and evolutionary factors account for this elevational pattern of species diversity (Laiolo et al, 2018).…”

Examining differences in phylogenetic composition enhances understanding of the phylogenetic structure of the shrub community in the northeastern Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau

“…As in many previous studies (Barak et al, 2017;Zhou et al, 2018;Zu et al, 2019), we used the megatree containing 32,223 plant species published by Zanne et al (2014) as a backbone and used the Phylomatic platform (Webb & Donoghue, 2005) to prune this megatree to include only the species found at our sampling sites. In this study, we only focused on angiosperms.…”

“…Phylogenetic-based community ecology, which incorporates the evolutionary relationships between species, has facilitated our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the structures of plant assemblages (Aldana, Carlucci, Fine, & Stevenson, 2017;Liu, Che, Jiao, Li, & Jiang, 2019;Swenson et al, 2012;Webb, 2000;Webb, Ackerly, McPeek, & Donoghue, 2002;Zhou et al, 2018;Zu et al, 2019).…”