Latitudinal and elevational patterns of phylogenetic structure in forest communities in China’s mountains

Gheyret, Gheyur; Yong, Guo; Fang, Jingyun; Tang, Zhiyao

doi:10.1007/s11427-019-1663-4

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Several hypotheses have been formulated to explain latitudinal gradients in species richness, involving water–energy dynamics [ 39 ] or history/evolution [ 40 ]. A large number of studies confirmed that the relation between climate and species diversity is critical for understanding these patterns, and in particular, current climatic features, such as temperature and precipitation, have been shown to play a great role in explaining the latitudinal patterns of species diversity [ 41 , 42 ]. In addition, a “peninsula effect” could have also contributed to determining this variation pattern, given that species richness is typically known to decrease from the proximal (i.e., northern Italy) to the distal (i.e., southern Italy) areas of a peninsula [ 43 , 44 , 45 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Floristic Richness in a Mediterranean Hotspot: A Journey across Italy

D’Antraccoli,

Peruzzi,

Conti

et al. 2023

Plants

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Species richness is a fundamental property of biodiversity patterns and is properly expressed by the species–area relationship (SAR), namely the increase in the number of species with the area. Here, we studied and explored the species–area relationship with respect to vascular plant species in Italy and compared vascular plant richness among Italian administrative regions. Concerning the entire vascular flora (native and alien), the best-performing formula is the Arrhenius’ Power function: S = c Az. The constants of this function are c = 241.2 and z = 0.281. The best-performing formula concerning just native (c = 245.2 and z = 0.263) and alien (c = 10.1 and z = 0.404) richness is the Power function as well. The floristically richest Italian regions considering the entire flora are Liguria, Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Trentino-Alto Adige, which are also the regions that are richest in alien flora unfortunately. Regions of particular naturalistic interest are Abruzzo, Valle d’Aosta, and Molise, because only these three regions exhibit native floristic richness that is higher than expected, and this is coupled with an alien floristic richness that is lower than expected. On the contrary, four regions (Lombardia, Veneto, Toscana, and Emilia-Romagna) show potentially severe conservation problems due to biological invasions since they experience native floristic richness that is lower than expected, with an alien floristic richness that is higher than expected. This study offers for the first time the ‘c’ and ‘z’ constants specifically calibrated at the national level for Italian vascular flora. The availability of such constants allows the calculation of the number of expected species for a given area to be investigated, providing a robust starting hypothesis for floristic studies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Floristic Richness in a Mediterranean Hotspot: A Journey across Italy

D’Antraccoli,

Peruzzi,

Conti

et al. 2023

Plants

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“…H max was highest for trees in the tropics and lowest for trees in temperate regions, whereas β displayed an overall weak but significant positive relationship with latitude ( R 2 = 0.091, p < 0.001; Figure 4d). These contrasting patterns can likely be partly explained by changes in species composition from cold temperate forests to tropical forests (Gheyret et al, 2020). It is worth mentioning that some understory tree species and emergent species may contribute greatly to forest architecture variations and allometric deviations in both subtropical and tropical forests (Duncanson et al, 2015; Xu et al 2019a).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the link between tree size and ecosystem carbon sequestration capacity across continental forests

et al. 2022

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The asymptotic height (H max ) and the size-scaling exponent (β), proxies of tree size and important forest architectural parameters of the relationships between height and tree diameter of forests, play important roles in the carbon (C) stocks and fluxes of forest ecosystems. However, the patterns and drivers of these values in continental China are not well known. Based on a national forest database of China, we explored the geographic patterns and ecological drivers of H max and β and their dynamic relationships with the C sequestration capabilities of the studied ecosystems, including the C stock and allocation, net ecosystem productivity (NEP), and mean ecosystem C turnover time. At the ecosystem scale, the H max values ranged from 10.37 to 37.07 m, with a mean value of 25.41 m, showing a decreasing trend with increasing latitude. However, β ranged from 0.598 to 0.73, with a mean value of 0.66, showing an

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“…These resources include: (a) time‐calibrated phylogenies incorporating most genera and species; (b) range maps for all species; and (c) climatic data (Lu et al, 2018 ). Using these (and similar) resources, there have now been important studies on the phylogenetic structure of Chinese plant assemblages (Gheyret et al, 2020 ; Lu et al, 2018 ; Qian et al, 2019 ). However, these studies did not test the causes of climate‐richness relationships.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of climate‐diversity relationships and richness patterns in Chinese plants

Wiens

2022

Ecology and Evolution

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A major goal of ecology and evolutionary biology is to explain geographic patterns of species richness. Richness is often correlated with climatic variables. However, the processes underlying these climate‐diversity relationships remain poorly understood. Two potential hypotheses to explain these relationships involve: (i) faster diversification rates (speciation minus extinction) in high‐richness climates and (ii) earlier colonization of high‐richness climates, allowing more time for speciation to build up richness. Few studies have tested these hypotheses directly, and most focused on animal clades with limited richness. In this study, we test these hypotheses in Chinese angiosperms, encompassing ~10% of Earth's plant species, using large‐scale phylogenetic, climatic, and distributional data including 26,977 species. We find that climatic zones that were colonized earlier have higher species richness. By contrast, relationships between diversification rates and richness of climatic zones are often nonsignificant or negative. Our study reveals that even when richness is strongly correlated with climate, the underlying explanation may still be rooted in phylogenetic history. Thus, climate may not be a competing explanation for richness patterns relative to colonization times and diversification rates. We also show that the timing of colonization can be crucial for explaining richness patterns. Yet, many recent studies have ignored this explanation and instead have focused solely on rates of speciation and diversification as drivers of diversity gradients.

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Latitudinal and elevational patterns of phylogenetic structure in forest communities in China’s mountains

Cited by 11 publications

References 54 publications

Floristic Richness in a Mediterranean Hotspot: A Journey across Italy

Floristic Richness in a Mediterranean Hotspot: A Journey across Italy

On the link between tree size and ecosystem carbon sequestration capacity across continental forests

The origins of climate‐diversity relationships and richness patterns in Chinese plants

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