Phylogenetic structure of Vitex negundo var. heterophylla shrub communities and Spiraea trilobata shrub communities in the North Taihang Mountains

doi:10.17520/biods.2020192

Abstract

Abstract:

Aims: Shrublands are one of the most important ecosystems in Taihang Mountains region of China. Shrub communities play an important role in maintaining biodiversity, providing ecosystem services, and promoting ecological security in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.
Methods: We explored differences in community assembly and associated environmental factors for two of the most representative shrub communities in the region, Vitex negundo var. heterophylla and Spiraea trilobata, by assessing their net relatedness index (NRI) and using multiple regression. We further used principal coordinates of phylogenetic structure (PCPS) to determine the key phylogenetic nodes giving rise to the community phylogenetic structure.
Results: We found that the phylogenetic structures of these two shrub communities were significantly different despite no detectable difference in their species diversity. The S. trilobata community showed significant phylogenetic overdispersion, whereas the V. negundo var. heterophylla community showed no significant phylogenetic structure, despite exhibiting a greater degree of clustering degree than S. trilobata community. Community assembly of S. trilobata shrubs was driven by niche differentiation. By contrast, habitat filtering together with niche differentiation drove community assembly of V. negundo var. heterophylla shrubs. Habitat filtering related to drought stress was the main reason for the increase in phylogenetic clustering of V. negundo var. heterophylla shrubs. The PCPS two-dimensional ranking results showed that the phylogenetic clustering trend of the V. negundo var. heterophylla shrub community was mainly attributed to the lack of distantly related groups, such as Rosales and Fagales, while the species comprising the S. trilobata shrub community contained more phylogenetic clades.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that habitat filtering was not a major driver of shrub community assembly in the Taihang Mountains region and that water limitation was an important factor in determining regional community phylogenetic structure of shrubland ecosystems.

Key words: community assembly, niche differentiation, habitat filtering, principal coordinates analysis, water limitation

Lei Dong, Jing Wang, Yonggang Liu, Zhiping Zhao, Xiangcheng Mi, Ke Guo. Phylogenetic structure of Vitex negundo var. heterophylla shrub communities and Spiraea trilobata shrub communities in the North Taihang Mountains[J]. Biodiv Sci, 2021, 29(1): 21-31.

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URL: https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/10.17520/biods.2020192

https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/Y2021/V29/I1/21

Figures/Tables 8

Fig. 1 Location of Vitex negundo var. heterophylla shrub (circle) and Spiraea trilobata shrub (triangle) sample sites in the North Taihang Mountains

Fig. 2 Distribution of 11 environmental factors on the first two axes of the principal components analysis (PCA). AI, Aridity index; Pmax, Precipitation of wettest month; AP, Annual precipitation; Pmin, Precipitation of driest month; Tmax, Max. temperature of warmest month; Tmin, Min. temperature of coldest month; MAT, Mean annual temperature; PET, Potential evapotranspiration.

Fig. 3 Phylogenetic tree of all species involved in this study. Vitex and Spiraea represent the communities’ composition of a typical Vitex negundo var. heterophylla shrub (NRI = 0.05) and Spiraea trilobata shrub (NRI = -0.87), respectively. IV, Importance value (%) of the corresponding species in the communities. Clade-A, Campanulids; Clade-B, Lamiids; Clade-C, Other clades in Superasterids; Clade-D, Fabaceae; Clade-E, Other clades in Superrosids.

Fig. 4 Species richness (SR) (A), Shannon-Wiener index (H') (B), Pielou’s evenness index (E) (C), net relatedness index (NRI) (D), and first (E) and second (F) principal coordinates of phylogenetic structure (PCPS) axis of Vitex negundo var. heterophylla and Spiraea trilobata shrub communities. Different letters indicate significant difference between communities. * indicates mean is significantly less than 0.

Table 1 Multiple regression between Vitex negundo var. heterophylla shrubs’ and Spiraea trilobata shrubs’ net relatedness index (NRI) and environmental factors in the North Taihang Mountains (Only significant factors were listed)

变量 Variable	自由度 df	标准化回归系数 Standardized regression coefficient	均方差 Mean Sq	方差贡献率 Contribution rate of variance (%)
最湿月降水量 Precipitation of wettest month (P_max)	1	-0.68	11.02	29.01^**
坡向 Aspect	1	-0.50	7.62	20.05^**
海拔 Altitude	1	-0.13	2.25	5.93^*
残差 Residuals	32	-	0.47	39.89

Table 2 Multiple regression between Vitex negundo var. heterophylla shrubs’ net relatedness index (NRI) and environmental factors in the North Taihang Mountains

变量 Variable	自由度 df	标准化回归系数 Standardized regression coefficient	均方差 Mean Sq	方差贡献率 Contribution rate of variance (%)
最湿月降水量 Precipitation of wettest month (P_max)	1	-1.35	4.69	31.25^*
最干月降水量 Precipitation of driest month (P_min)	1	0.20	0.19	1.25
坡向 Aspect	1	-0.46	2.77	18.45
海拔 Altitude	1	0.39	1.12	7.47
坡度 Slope	1	-0.61	0.61	4.04
最冷月最低温 Min. temperature of coldest month	1	0.11	0.01	0.04
残差 Residuals	9	-	0.63	37.50

Table 3 Multiple regression between Spiraea trilobata shrubs’ net relatedness index (NRI) and environmental factors in the North Taihang Mountains

变量 Variable	自由度 df	标准化回归系数 Standardized regression coefficient	均方差 Mean Sq	方差贡献率 Contribution rate of variance (%)
最湿月降水量 Precipitation of wettest month (P_max)	1	-0.73	2.09	9.50
最干月降水量 Precipitation of driest month (P_min)	1	0.45	0.27	1.24
坡向 Aspect	1	-0.52	3.36	15.28
海拔 Altitude	1	-0.78	0.76	3.43
坡度 Slope	1	-0.41	1.59	7.20
最冷月最低温 Min. temperature of coldest month	1	-0.69	0.93	4.25
残差 Residuals	16	-	0.81	59.10

Fig. 5 Scatter diagram between the first two axes of the principal coordinates of phylogenetic structure (PCPS) for Vitex negundo var. heterophylla (circle) and Spiraea trilobata (triangle) shrub communities. Species included in Clade A-E were shown in Fig. 3.

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