Plants show more flesh in the tropics: variation in fruit type along latitudinal and climatic gradients

Chen, Si‐Chong; Cornwell, William K.; Zhang, Hongxiang; Moles, Angela T.

doi:10.1111/ecog.02010

Cited by 72 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…The elevational ranges are from 600 to 6,000 m F I G U R E 4 The relationship between spinescence and herbivorous mammal richness for every 100 m belt in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Thus, our analyses consider the proportion of spinescent species in elevational belts that are appropriately weighted according to the number of species they contain (Chen et al, 2017), which means that a belt with 400 species gets more weight than does a belt with fewer than 40 species. The fitted lines display the predicted probabilities of spinescent species as fit by logistic regression models life-form.…”

Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plants are more likely to be spiny at mid‐elevations in the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau, south‐western China

Song

Sun

Lev‐Yadun

et al. 2019

Journal of Biogeography

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Aim:We tested the elevational herbivory defence hypothesis, which predicts that plants from low elevations are better defended than plants from higher elevations. Location:The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in south-western China-the world's highest plateau. Taxon: Angiosperms.Methods: We collated binary spinescence data for 10,622 angiosperm species ranging from 600 to 6,000 m a.s.l. Logistic regression was used to quantify the elevational pattern in spinescence. Because spinescence is thought to be especially effective against mammalian herbivores, we also quantified the association between spinescence and mammalian herbivore richness. Results:We found a unimodal relationship between elevation and spinescence, with the highest proportion of spinescent species occurring at mid-elevations. This unimodal relationship was present in perennial herbs, shrubs and trees, but not in annual herbs. Herbivorous mammal richness also showed a unimodal elevational pattern. A positive association between herbivorous mammal richness and the incidence of spinescent species suggests that elevational variation in herbivore pressure from mammals might drive elevational variation in spinescence. Main Conclusions:Our findings further call into question the elevational herbivory defence hypothesis and shed new light on the potential causes of elevational gradients in plant diversity. K E Y W O R D Selevation, physical defence, plant defence, plant-herbivore interaction, prickle, spine, thorn

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Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plants are more likely to be spiny at mid‐elevations in the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau, south‐western China

Song

Sun

Lev‐Yadun

et al. 2019

Journal of Biogeography

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“…frugivorous birds divide the niche of fruiting plants most finely at high latitudes where they also form modular subsets of closely associated plant and bird species (Fig. We note that temperate biomes are also characterized by having less plant species with fleshy fruits than tropical biomes (Chen et al 2016) and that previous studies have shown There is an opposed latitudinal pattern of network-derived and assemblage-level dietary specialization: (a) the proportion of obligate frugivorous birds decreases with latitude, whereas network-derived (b) complementary specialization (∆-VA H 2 ′) and (c) modularity (∆-VA Q) increased with latitude. At the same time, however, there are more obligate frugivorous bird species in the tropics than in temperate regions, i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposed latitudinal patterns of network‐derived and dietary specialization in avian plant–frugivore interaction systems

et al. 2017

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Latitudinal patterns of biodiversity have been studied for centuries, but it is only during the last decades that species interaction networks have been used to examine the proposed latitudinal gradient of biotic specialization. These studies have given idiosyncratic results, which may either be because of genuine biological differences between systems, different concepts and scales used to quantify biotic specialization or because the methodological approaches used to compare interaction networks were inappropriate. Here we carefully examine the latitudinal specialization gradient using a global dataset of avian plant–frugivore assemblages and interaction networks. In particular, we test whether network‐derived specialization patterns differ from patterns based on assemblage‐level information on avian dietary preferences on specific food types. We found that network‐derived measures of specialization (complementary specialization H2′ and < d’>, modularity Q) increased with latitude, i.e. frugivorous birds divide the niche of fruiting plants most finely at high latitudes where they also formed more modular interaction networks than at tropical latitudes. However, the strength and significance of the relationship between specialization metrics and latitude was influenced by the methodological approach. On the other hand, assemblage‐level information on avian specialization on fruit diet (i.e. the proportion of obligate frugivorous bird species feeding primarily on fruit) revealed an opposed latitudinal pattern as more bird species were specialized on fruit diet in tropical than in temperate assemblages. This difference in the latitudinal specialization gradient reflects that obligate frugivores require a high diversity of fruit plants, as observed in tropical systems, and fulfil more generalized roles in plant–frugivore networks than bird species feeding on different food types. Future research should focus on revealing the underlying ecological, historical and evolutionary mechanisms shaping these patterns. Our results highlight the necessity of comparing different scales of biotic specialization for a better understanding of geographical patterns of specialization in resource–consumer interactions.

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“…The magnitude of this gradient at landscape scale on Réunion is greater than the one shown at continental scale by Chen et al. (). The sharp decrease of pFF with elevation on Réunion shows how important the last remaining vegetation corridors along environmental gradients are in understanding biodiversity patterns.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 57%

“…In the lowlands, woody plants are more likely to bear fleshy fruits on the windward side where there is no dry season. The positive, linear influence of precipitation on pFF has already been shown for mainland worldwide (Almeida‐Neto et al., ; Chen et al., ; Correa et al., ) and Madagascar (Bollen et al., ). Lower pFF on the leeward may be the consequence of higher water requirements for making fleshy diaspores.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…As a consequence, abiotic factors that strongly influence resource availability may play an important role in shaping the distribution of fruit types. Several studies have investigated climatic and geographical factors underlying broad‐scale patterns in fruit type on tropical mainland (see Almeida‐Neto, Campassi, Galetti, Jordano, & Oliveira‐Filho, ; Chen, Cornwell, Zhang, & Moles, ; Correa, Álvarez, & Stevenson, ), but none have on oceanic islands. High‐elevation islands are relevant study systems because (a) they present strong ecological gradients and provide a suitable environmental heterogeneity to understand the composition of fruit type across assemblages (Irl et al., ); (b) they possess impoverished and well‐studied floras, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why are woody plants fleshy‐fruited at low elevations? Evidence from a high‐elevation oceanic island

Albert¹,

Flores²,

Wilding

et al. 2018

J Vegetation Science

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Question The composition of fruit types, fleshy vs dry fruits, greatly influences the functioning of plant communities. Literature documenting spatial patterns of fruit types at fine scale is abundant. However, studies at larger geographical scale remain scarce, especially on high‐elevation oceanic islands that provide a great environmental heterogeneity. Here, we investigated how abiotic factors explained the proportion of fleshy‐fruited species (pFF) on Réunion. We asked (a) which abiotic factors were most related to pFF, (b) if fleshy‐fruited canopy species were more sensitive than fleshy‐fruited shrubs to harsh climatic conditions and (c) what are the relationships between pFF, endemism and phylogenetic relatedness. Location Réunion (3,070 m a.s.l), Mascarene archipelago, South‐West Indian Ocean. Methods We used a dataset of 429 vegetation plots and assigned fruit types, growth forms and geographical distribution to 213 native woody species. Phylogenetic trees were constructed for each plot. We used GLMs to measure the relationship between pFF and abiotic factors, controlling for spatial autocorrelation. We then assessed the relationship between pFF, the standardized net relatedness index and the proportion of endemic species. Results The top model explained 78% of the variation in pFF. Elevation was by far the best predictor, with pFF decreasing from 81% at 50 m a.s.l to 0% at 3,000 m a.s.l. At low elevations, pFF was higher on the wet windward (81%) than on the leeward (70%) where phylogenetic clustering was evident. Almost half (48%) of woody plants was fleshy‐fruited trees at low elevations. The proportion of fleshy‐fruited trees declined sharply with elevation and was significantly related to precipitation of the driest month contrary to the proportion of fleshy‐fruited shrubs that showed a hump shaped pattern along elevational gradient and no correlation with precipitation of the driest month. At high elevations, most plant assemblages were phylogenetically clustered and strongly dominated by single‐island endemic dry‐fruited plants. Conclusions The striking relationship between pFF and elevation, the shift among fleshy‐fruited growth forms along climatic gradients and the phylogenetic clustering of assemblages subjected to harsh climatic conditions, suggested that climatic factors were the main drivers of the distribution of fruit types on Réunion. To explain the absence of fleshy‐fruited species at high elevations, we hypothesized that native fleshy‐fruited lineages lacked the evolutionary potential to adapt and fleshy‐fruited cold‐adapted lineages had major difficulties reaching Réunion.

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Plants show more flesh in the tropics: variation in fruit type along latitudinal and climatic gradients

Cited by 72 publications

References 67 publications

Plants are more likely to be spiny at mid‐elevations in the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau, south‐western China

Plants are more likely to be spiny at mid‐elevations in the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau, south‐western China

Opposed latitudinal patterns of network‐derived and dietary specialization in avian plant–frugivore interaction systems

Why are woody plants fleshy‐fruited at low elevations? Evidence from a high‐elevation oceanic island

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