The drivers of plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic β-diversity in the gobi desert of northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

doi:10.17520/biods.2021503

Abstract

Abstract:

Aims: Uncovering the assembly mechanism that shapes the large-scale biodiversity patterns is a key challenge in ecology. Numerous previous studies have demonstrated that multiple ecological processes can simultaneously regulate plant community assembly. However, how they shape the plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic β-diversity of gobi deserts remains unclear, hindering the understanding of gobi plant assembly processes and diversity maintenance.
Methods: We selected 61 sites from major gobi desert habitat types across northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Plant species abundance, molecular phylogeny, as well as eight functional traits including: leaf nitrogen concentrations (LNC), leaf phosphorus concentrations (LPC), leaf area (LA), specific leaf area (SLA), fine root nitrogen concentrations (RNC), fine root phosphorus concentrations (RPC), root length (RL), specific root length (SRL), and associated environmental variables were measured. We then tested the relative effects of different assembly processes on taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity using null model and variation partitioning analyses.
Results: Plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic β-diversity all significantly increased with geographic distance, whereas taxonomic and functional β-diversity were more strongly related to geographic distance. Null model analysis revealed that three facets of plant β-diversity exhibited a non-random pattern, indicating niche processes may dominate the gobi desert plant community assembly. Plant functional β-diversity exhibited clustering patterns, while phylogenetic β-diversity displayed dispersion patterns. Among eight traits, only LA and RL demonstrated significant but weak phylogenetic signals, suggesting gobi plant functional traits were not conserved throughout evolution. Variation partitioning analysis further indicated that compared with geographic distance, environmental distance could better explain the variation in all three facets of plant β-diversity. More importantly, local habitat factors, such as soil moisture content and gravel coverage, drove the variation in both three facets of plant β-diversity rather than climatic factors.
Conclusions: These results demonstrated that niche processes, such as habitat filtering, may determine the different facets of plant β-diversity in the gobi desert, and the distribution patterns of plant functional and phylogenetic β-diversity were significantly different. In addition, the mismatch between functional and phylogenetic β-diversity patterns may be partly caused by functional traits that were not conserved along the phylogeny. Taken together, our findings provide new understanding for plant assembly mechanism in extremely harsh environment regime.

Key words: Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, gobi, taxonomic diversity, functional trait, phylogeny, β-diversity

Jianming Wang, Mengjun Qu, Yin Wang, Yiming Feng, Bo Wu, Qi Lu, Nianpeng He, Jingwen Li. The drivers of plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic β-diversity in the gobi desert of northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau[J]. Biodiv Sci, 2022, 30(6): 21503.

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URL: https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/10.17520/biods.2021503

https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/Y2022/V30/I6/21503

Figures/Tables 8

Fig. 1 Distribution of survey sites in gobi deserts of northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The gobi deserts map dataset was provided by Feng and Lu (2017).

Table 1 Phylogenetic signal for eight functional traits

功能性状 Functional trait	Blomberg’s K	P
叶片氮含量 Leaf nitrogen concentrations (LNC)	0.10	0.29
叶片磷含量 Leaf phosphorus concentrations (LPC)	0.10	0.32
叶面积 Leaf area (LA)	0.43	0.03
比叶面积 Specific leaf area (SLA)	0.08	0.52
细根氮含量 Fine root nitrogen concentrations (RNC)	0.17	0.09
细根磷含量 Fine root phosphorus concentrations (RPC)	0.07	0.66
根长 Root length (RL)	0.41	0.02
比根长 Specific root length (SRL)	0.19	0.10

Fig. 2 Variation in plant taxonomic, functional (mean nearest neighbor trait distance), and phylogenetic (mean nearest neighbor phylogenetic distance) β-diversity observed values (a-c) and their standardized effect sizes (d-e) along geographic distance in the gobi deserts of northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Table 2 Mantel tests for the relationships of plant taxonomic, functional (mean nearest neighbor trait distance), and phylogenetic (mean nearest neighbor phylogenetic distance) β-diversity observed values (OV) and their standard effect size (SES) of with different environmental factors in the gobi deserts of northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

环境差异 Environmental difference	物种β多样性 Taxonomic β-diversity		功能β多样性 Functional β-diversity		系统发育β多样性 Phylogenetic β-diversity
环境差异 Environmental difference	观测值 OV	标准效应 SES	观测值 OV	标准效应 SES	观测值 OV	标准效应 SES
太阳辐射强度 Solar radiation	0.140^**	0.167^**	0.102	0.104	0.021	-0.0002
年均温 Annual mean temperature	0.144^**	0.117^**	0.146^*	0.105	-0.004	-0.091
温度季节性 Temperature seasonality	0.112^*	0.065	0.117	0.039	0.091	0.026
年降水量 Annual precipitation	0.012	0.02	-0.056	-0.118	-0.081	-0.116
降水季节性 Precipitation seasonality	0.055	0.105	-0.071	-0.098	-0.02	0.003
地表砾石盖度 Gravel coverage	0.268^***	0.204^***	0.372^***	0.226^***	0.35^***	0.191^***
土壤含水量 Soil moisture content	0.295^***	0.270^***	0.431^***	0.335^***	0.27^***	0.116
土壤氮含量 Soil total nitrogen content	0.017	0.089	-0.021	0.031	0.014	0.071
土壤有机碳含量 Soil organic carbon content	0.104	0.123^*	0.199^**	0.175^**	0.013	-0.056
土壤pH值 Soil pH	0.323^***	0.328^***	0.353^***	0.216^**	0.325^***	0.183^*

Fig. 3 The relationships of plant taxonomic, functional (mean nearest neighbor trait distance), and phylogenetic (mean nearest neighbor phylogenetic distance) β-diversity observed value (a-c) and their standardized effect size (d-e) with gravel coverage divergence in the gobi deserts of northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Fig. 4 Comparison of the standardized effect size for plant taxonomic (a), functional, and phylogenetic β-diversity (b-c) with zero value across the gobi deserts of northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. (b) Mean nearest neighbor trait distance and mean nearest neighbor phylogenetic distance; (c) Mean pairwise trait distance and mean pairwise phylogenetic distance. *** P < 0.001.

Fig. 5 Comparison of the standardized effect size for single functional trait β-diversity with zero value across the gobi deserts of northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. (a) Mean nearest neighbor trait distance; (b) Mean pairwise trait distance. LNC, Leaf nitrogen concentrations; LPC, Leaf phosphorus concentrations; SLA, Specific leaf area; LA, Leaf area; RNC, Fine root nitrogen concentrations; RPC, Fine root phosphorus concentrations; SRL, Specific root length; RL, Root length. NS, P > 0.05; ***, P < 0.001.

Fig. 6 The relative contribution of environmental and geographic distance in driving the vraiation in plant taxonomic, functional (mean nearest neighbor trait distance), and phylogenetic (mean nearest neighbor phylogenetic distance) β-diversity observed values (a) and their standardized effect sizes (b) across the gobi deserts of northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

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