Dataset Information

Cross-scale analysis of the region effect on vascular plant species diversity in southern and northern European mountain ranges.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The divergent glacial histories of southern and northern Europe affect present-day species diversity at coarse-grained scales in these two regions, but do these effects also penetrate to the more fine-grained scales of local communities?

Methodology/principal findings

We carried out a cross-scale analysis to address this question for vascular plants in two mountain regions, the Alps in southern Europe and the Scandes in northern Europe, using environmentally paired vegetation plots in the two regions (n = 403 in each region) to quantify four diversity components: (i) total number of species occurring in a region (total ?-diversity), (ii) number of species that could occur in a target plot after environmental filtering (habitat-specific ?-diversity), (iii) pair-wise species compositional turnover between plots (plot-to-plot ?-diversity) and (iv) number of species present per plot (plot ?-diversity). We found strong region effects on total ?-diversity, habitat-specific ?-diversity and plot-to-plot ?-diversity, with a greater diversity in the Alps even towards distances smaller than 50 m between plots. In contrast, there was a slightly greater plot ?-diversity in the Scandes, but with a tendency towards contrasting region effects on high and low soil-acidity plots.

Conclusions/significance

We conclude that there are strong regional differences between coarse-grained (landscape- to regional-scale) diversity components of the flora in the Alps and the Scandes mountain ranges, but that these differences do not necessarily penetrate to the finest-grained (plot-scale) diversity component, at least not on acidic soils. Our findings are consistent with the contrasting regional Quaternary histories, but we also consider alternative explanatory models. Notably, ecological sorting and habitat connectivity may play a role in the unexpected limited or reversed region effect on plot ?-diversity, and may also affect the larger-scale diversity components. For instance, plot connectivity and/or selection for high dispersal ability may increase plot ?-diversity and compensate for low total ?-diversity.

SUBMITTER: Lenoir J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3008735 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Cross-scale analysis of the region effect on vascular plant species diversity in southern and northern European mountain ranges.

Lenoir Jonathan J Gégout Jean-Claude JC Guisan Antoine A Vittoz Pascal P Wohlgemuth Thomas T Zimmermann Niklaus E NE Dullinger Stefan S Pauli Harald H Willner Wolfgang W Grytnes John-Arvid JA Virtanen Risto R Svenning Jens-Christian JC

PloS one 20101222 12

<h4>Background</h4>The divergent glacial histories of southern and northern Europe affect present-day species diversity at coarse-grained scales in these two regions, but do these effects also penetrate to the more fine-grained scales of local communities?<h4>Methodology/principal findings</h4>We carried out a cross-scale analysis to address this question for vascular plants in two mountain regions, the Alps in southern Europe and the Scandes in northern Europe, using environmentally paired vege ...[more]

PMID: 21203521

Similar Datasets

Project description:The spatial patterns of biodiversity and their underlying mechanisms have been an active area of research for a long time. In this study, a total of 63 samples (20m × 30m) were systematically established along elevation gradients on Mount Tai and Mount Lao, China. We explored altitudinal patterns of plant diversity in the two mountain systems. In order to understand the mechanisms driving current diversity patterns, we used phylogenetic approaches to detect the spatial patterns of phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic structure along two elevation gradients. We found that total species richness had a monotonically decreasing pattern and tree richness had a unimodal pattern along the elevation gradients in the two study areas. However, altitudinal patterns in shrub richness and herbs richness were not consistent on the two mountains. At low elevation, anthropogenic disturbances contributed to the increase of plant diversity, especially for shrubs and herbs in understory layers, which are more sensitive to changes in microenvironment. The phylogenetic structure of plant communities exhibited an inverted hump-shaped pattern along the elevation gradient on Mount Tai, which demonstrates that environmental filtering is the main driver of plant community assembly at high and low elevations and inter-specific competition may be the main driver of plant community assembly in the middle elevations. However, the phylogenetic structure of plant communities did not display a clear pattern on Mount Lao where the climate is milder. Phylogenetic beta diversity and species beta diversity consistently increased with increasing altitudinal divergence in the two study areas. However, the altitudinal patterns of species richness did not completely mirror phylogenetic diversity patterns. Conservation areas should be selected taking into consideration the preservation of high species richness, while maximizing phylogenetic diversity to improve the potential for diversification in the future.

Project description:Biogeographic barriers for freshwater biota can be effective at various spatial scales. At the largest spatial scale, freshwater organisms can become genetically isolated by their high mountain ranges, vast deserts, and inability to cross oceans. Isolation by distance of aquatic plants is expected to be stronger across than alongside mountain ridges whereas the heterogeneity of habitats among populations and temporary droughts may influence connectivity and hamper dispersal. Suitable aquatic plant habitats became reduced, even for the widespread submerged Potamogeton pectinatus L. (also named Stuckenia pectinata) giving structure to various aquatic habitats. We compared the level of genetic diversity in a heterogeneous series of aquatic habitats across Iran and tested their differentiation over distances and across mountain ranges (Alborz and Zagros) and desert zones (Kavir), with values obtained from temperate region populations. The diversity of aquatic ecosystems across and along large geographic barriers provided a unique ecological situation within Iran. P. pectinatus were considered from thirty-six sites across Iran at direct flight distances ranging from 20 to 1,200 km. Nine microsatellite loci revealed a very high number of alleles over all sites. A PCoA, NJT clustering and STRUCTURE analysis revealed a separate grouping of individuals of southeastern Iranian sites and was confirmed by their different nuclear ITS and cpDNA haplotypes thereby indicating an evolutionary significant unit (ESU). At the level of populations, a positive correlation between allelic differentiation Dest with geographic distance was found. Individual-based STRUCTURE analysis over 36 sites showed 7 genetic clusters. FST and RST values for ten populations reached 0.343 and 0.521, respectively thereby indicating that allele length differences are more important and contain evolutionary information. Overall, higher levels of diversity and a stronger differentiation was revealed among Iranian P. pectinatus than previously observed for temperate European regions, due to regional differences across mountain ranges over long distances.

Project description:Mediterranean maquis vegetation is highly biodiverse, but widespread grazing poses a challenge for management and conservation. We sampled woody and herbaceous plants separately on a limestone mountain with strong mesic-xeric gradients in Tunisia's Parc National de L'Ichkeul, assessed grazing pressure (on a scale of 1-3), and asked whether grazing had a significant effect on plant compositional abundance before and after controlling for environmental covariates. Sites on the more mesic lakeside face of the mountain were most compositionally unique, and forbs contributed most to the herbaceous beta-diversity on the mountain. We used variance partitioning to separate the collective and individual effects of the abiotic environment, grazing, human activity, and space on herbaceous and woody beta-diversity. However, the individual effect of grazing on overall plant community composition was confounded with space, due to the spatially autocorrelated grazing pressure on the mountain. Importantly, we found that herbaceous and woody communities responded differently to increasing levels of grazing intensity: herbaceous beta-diversity was highest between sites with no grazing pressure, while woody beta-diversity peaked under light grazing. Herbaceous community composition was sensitive to any intensity of grazing pressure, and biotic homogenization occured under moderate-to-high grazing pressure. On the other hand, woody community composition remained relatively similar under no to light grazing pressure, but differed under moderate-to-heavy grazing. Using a one-way permutational analysis of variance analysis, we showed that grazing had a significant effect when controlling for abiotic and spatial covariates. Our findings offer insight into the effects of grazing on maquis vegetation at Jebel Ichkeul, acting as a microcosm of similar conservation and management issues elsewhere in the Mediterranean. We suggest that a combination of monitoring and carefully controlled grazing may enhance plant diversity and maintain the region's biodiverse maquis vegetation, potentially maintaining a key climate refugium for vulnerable endemic species. Importantly, our study provides a useful baseline of the plant assemblages at Jebel Ichkeul with which to compare future vegetation changes.

Dataset Information

Cross-scale analysis of the region effect on vascular plant species diversity in southern and northern European mountain ranges.

Background

Methodology/principal findings

Conclusions/significance

Publications

Cross-scale analysis of the region effect on vascular plant species diversity in southern and northern European mountain ranges.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets