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Predictors of elevational biodiversity gradients change from single taxa to the multi-taxa community level.

ABSTRACT: The factors determining gradients of biodiversity are a fundamental yet unresolved topic in ecology. While diversity gradients have been analysed for numerous single taxa, progress towards general explanatory models has been hampered by limitations in the phylogenetic coverage of past studies. By parallel sampling of 25 major plant and animal taxa along a 3.7?km elevational gradient on Mt. Kilimanjaro, we quantify cross-taxon consensus in diversity gradients and evaluate predictors of diversity from single taxa to a multi-taxa community level. While single taxa show complex distribution patterns and respond to different environmental factors, scaling up diversity to the community level leads to an unambiguous support for temperature as the main predictor of species richness in both plants and animals. Our findings illuminate the influence of taxonomic coverage for models of diversity gradients and point to the importance of temperature for diversification and species coexistence in plant and animal communities.

SUBMITTER: Peters MK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5192166 | biostudies-other | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Predictors of elevational biodiversity gradients change from single taxa to the multi-taxa community level.

Peters Marcell K MK Hemp Andreas A Appelhans Tim T Behler Christina C Classen Alice A Detsch Florian F Ensslin Andreas A Ferger Stefan W SW Frederiksen Sara B SB Gebert Friederike F Haas Michael M Helbig-Bonitz Maria M Hemp Claudia C Kindeketa William J WJ Mwangomo Ephraim E Ngereza Christine C Otte Insa I Röder Juliane J Rutten Gemma G Schellenberger Costa David D Tardanico Joseph J Zancolli Giulia G Deckert Jürgen J Eardley Connal D CD Peters Ralph S RS Rödel Mark-Oliver MO Schleuning Matthias M Ssymank Axel A Kakengi Victor V Zhang Jie J Böhning-Gaese Katrin K Brandl Roland R Kalko Elisabeth K V EK Kleyer Michael M Nauss Thomas T Tschapka Marco M Fischer Markus M Steffan-Dewenter Ingolf I

Nature communications 20161222

The factors determining gradients of biodiversity are a fundamental yet unresolved topic in ecology. While diversity gradients have been analysed for numerous single taxa, progress towards general explanatory models has been hampered by limitations in the phylogenetic coverage of past studies. By parallel sampling of 25 major plant and animal taxa along a 3.7 km elevational gradient on Mt. Kilimanjaro, we quantify cross-taxon consensus in diversity gradients and evaluate predictors of diversity ...[more]

PMID: 28004657

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Project description:Species' geographical distributions are tracking latitudinal and elevational surface temperature gradients under global climate change. To evaluate the opportunities to track these gradients across space, we provide a first baseline assessment of the steepness of these gradients for the world's terrestrial birds. Within the breeding ranges of 9,014 bird species, we characterized the spatial gradients in temperature along latitude and elevation for all and a subset of bird species, respectively. We summarized these temperature gradients globally for threatened and non-threatened species and determined how their steepness varied based on species' geography (range size, shape, and orientation) and projected changes in temperature under climate change. Elevational temperature gradients were steepest for species in Africa, western North and South America, and central Asia and shallowest in Australasia, insular IndoMalaya, and the Neotropical lowlands. Latitudinal temperature gradients were steepest for extratropical species, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Threatened species had shallower elevational gradients whereas latitudinal gradients differed little between threatened and non-threatened species. The strength of elevational gradients was positively correlated with projected changes in temperature. For latitudinal gradients, this relationship only held for extratropical species. The strength of latitudinal gradients was better predicted by species' geography, but primarily for extratropical species. Our findings suggest threatened species are associated with shallower elevational temperature gradients, whereas steep latitudinal gradients are most prevalent outside the tropics where fewer bird species occur year-round. Future modeling and mitigation efforts would benefit from the development of finer grain distributional data to ascertain how these gradients are structured within species' ranges, how and why these gradients vary among species, and the capacity of species to utilize these gradients under climate change.

Dataset Information

Predictors of elevational biodiversity gradients change from single taxa to the multi-taxa community level.

Publications

Predictors of elevational biodiversity gradients change from single taxa to the multi-taxa community level.

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