Effects of habitat loss on taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of understory Rubiaceae in Atlantic forest landscapes

Andrade, Edyla Ribeiro de; Jardim, Jomar Gomes; Santos, Bráulio A.; Melo, Felipe P. L.; Talora, Daniela Custódio; Faria, Deborah; Cazetta, Eliana

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2015.03.049

Cited by 44 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 64 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This will be the case when the species in a community have phylogenetically conserved environmental requirements (Webb et al., ), so low phylogenetic diversity in a perturbed community may be the result of related species sharing a preference for disturbed sites. Reduced phylogenetic diversity as a consequence of disturbance has been observed in coastal dunes (Brunbjerg et al., ), tropical forests (Andrade et al., ; Ribeiro et al., ; Santos et al., ) and urban environments (Knapp, Kühn, Schweiger, & Klotz, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Related plant species respond similarly to chronic anthropogenic disturbance: Implications for conservation decision‐making

Martínez‐Blancas

Paz

Salazar

et al. 2018

Journal of Applied Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many developing countries harbour large numbers of species that face little‐understood, gradual changes in their environment, including chronic anthropogenic disturbance (CAD), a high frequency but low intensity form of disturbance. These countries also lack the resources to study each species, so conservation practices have been generalized, assuming that complete taxonomic groups may be managed in the same ways. This approach could be justified if closely related species respond similarly to threats. We assessed if related species respond similarly to CAD, whether this affects phylogenetic diversity and if such patterns occur in different systems. Species’ identity and abundance was recorded in 59 sites differing in CAD intensity in a semi‐arid grassland and a tropical dry forest in Mexico. Disturbance response indices were calculated for each species. Nested analysis of variance coupled with null models were applied to determine if generalizations within taxa are justified and which taxonomic level explained the most variation in disturbance response among species. We obtained phylogenetic trees using molecular data for the grassland and published data for the tropical forest. Phylogenetic signal was measured with Pagel's λ. Community mean phylogenetic distance was regressed on CAD. Higher taxonomic levels explained more variation than expected by chance, indicating that related species respond similarly to CAD. However, only species in the same genus behaved similarly enough to make generalizations reliable. This is the result of an underlying, if modest, phylogenetic signal in CAD responses. Mean phylogenetic distance decreased with CAD in the grassland but not the tropical dry forest. This suggests that CAD was a stronger environmental filter in the grassland but weak in the tropical dry forest, where it was less intense. Policy implications. Species inform us how their relatives respond to chronic anthropogenic disturbance (CAD), supporting the idea that generalizations in management are possible. However, this procedure is seemingly reliable only within genera, which explain over 80% of the accumulated variance in species’ CAD responses, and not within orders or families. CAD may reduce phylogenetic diversity, perhaps leading to ecosystem function loss.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Related plant species respond similarly to chronic anthropogenic disturbance: Implications for conservation decision‐making

Martínez‐Blancas

Paz

Salazar

et al. 2018

Journal of Applied Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For plants in particular, studies have shown that the synergistic effects of habitat loss and fragmentation lead to profound changes in patterns of tree species composition [3,4], richness [5–7], functional [8–11] and phylogenetic diversity [12–15], with landscape configuration and edge effects commonly identified as the key drivers of floristic decay in tropical rainforests.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional decay in tree community within tropical fragmented landscapes: Effects of landscape-scale forest cover

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As tropical rainforests are cleared, forest remnants are increasingly isolated within agricultural landscapes. Understanding how forest loss impacts on species diversity can, therefore, contribute to identifying the minimum amount of habitat required for biodiversity maintenance in human-modified landscapes. Here, we evaluate how the amount of forest cover, at the landscape scale, affects patterns of species richness, abundance, key functional traits and common taxonomic families of adult trees in twenty Brazilian Atlantic rainforest landscapes. We found that as forest cover decreases, both tree community richness and abundance decline, without exhibiting a threshold. At the family-level, species richness and abundance of the Myrtaceae and Sapotaceae were also negatively impacted by the percent forest remaining at the landscape scale. For functional traits, we found a reduction in shade-tolerant, animal-dispersed and small-seeded species following a decrease in the amount of forest retained in landscapes. These results suggest that the amount of forest in a landscape is driving non-random losses in phylogenetic and functional tree diversity in Brazil’s remaining Atlantic rainforests. Our study highlights potential restraints on the conservation value of Atlantic rainforest remnants in deforested landscapes in the future.

show abstract

“…Four investigated the effect of fragment area and/or amount of forest cover on phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic structure with conflicting findings: with declining fragment size or percentage forest, bats in Caribbean lowlands, Costa Rica, lost phylogenetic diversity (Cisneros, Fagan & Willig ), trees in the Brazilian Atlantic both lost (Andrade et al . ) and retained (Santos et al . ) phylogenetic diversity, and trees in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico, retained phylogenetic diversity (Arroyo‐Rodríguez et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of landscape configuration and composition on phylogenetic diversity of trees in a highly fragmented tropical forest

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary1. Fragmentation of tropical forests is a major driver of the global extinction crisis. A key question is understanding how fragmentation impacts phylogenetic diversity, which summarizes the total evolutionary history shared across species within a community. Conserving phylogenetic diversity decreases the potential of losing unique ecological and phenotypic traits and plays important roles in maintaining ecosystem function and stability. 2. Our study was conducted in landscapes within the highly fragmented Brazilian Atlantic forest. We sampled living trees with d.b.h. ≥ 4.8 cm in 0.1 ha plots within 28 fragment interiors and 12 fragment edges to evaluate the impacts of landscape configuration, composition and patch size, as well as edge effects, on phylogenetic diversity indices (PD, a measure of phylogenetic richness; MPD, phylogenetic distance between individuals in a community in deep evolutionary time; and MNTD, phylogenetic distance between each individual and its nearest phylogenetic neighbour). 3. We found that PD and MPD were correlated with species richness, while MNTD was not. Best models suggest that MPD was positively related to edge density and negatively related to the number of forest patches, but that there was no effect of landscape configuration and composition metrics on PD or MNTD, or on standardized values of phylogenetic structure (sesPD, sesMPD and sesMNTD), which control for species richness. Considering all selected models for phylogenetic diversity and structure, edge density and number of forest patches were most frequently selected. 4. With increasing patch size, we found lower PD in interiors but no change at edges and lower sesMNTD regardless of habitat type. Additionally, PD and sesMNTD were higher in interiors than at edges. 5. Synthesis. Changes in MPD and sesMNTD suggest that extirpation of species at edges or in highly fragmented landscapes increases the dominance of species within a subset of clades (phylogenetic clustering), likely those adapted to disturbance. Smaller patch sizes are phylogenetically diverse and overdispersed, probably due to an invasion of edge-adapted species. Conservation must enhance patch area and connectivity via forest restoration; pivotally, even small forest patches are important reservoirs of phylogenetic diversity in the highly threatened Brazilian Atlantic forest.

show abstract

Effects of habitat loss on taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of understory Rubiaceae in Atlantic forest landscapes

Cited by 44 publications

References 64 publications

Related plant species respond similarly to chronic anthropogenic disturbance: Implications for conservation decision‐making

Related plant species respond similarly to chronic anthropogenic disturbance: Implications for conservation decision‐making

Functional decay in tree community within tropical fragmented landscapes: Effects of landscape-scale forest cover

Effects of landscape configuration and composition on phylogenetic diversity of trees in a highly fragmented tropical forest

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About