TY - JOUR
T1 - Woody plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity decrease along elevational gradients in Andean tropical montane forests
T2 - Environmental filtering and arrival of temperate taxa
AU - Bañares-de-Dios, Guillermo
AU - Macía, Manuel J.
AU - Arellano, Gabriel
AU - Granzow-de la Cerda, Íñigo
AU - Vega-Álvarez, Julia
AU - Arnelas, Itziar
AU - Espinosa, Carlos I.
AU - Salinas, Norma
AU - Cayuela, Luis
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences
PY - 2024/7
Y1 - 2024/7
N2 - Mountains are paramount for exploring biodiversity patterns due to the mosaic of topographies and climates encompassed over short distances. Biodiversity research has traditionally focused on taxonomic diversity when investigating changes along elevational gradients, but other facets should be considered. For first time, we simultaneously assessed elevational trends in taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of woody plants in Andean tropical montane forests and explored their underlying ecological and evolutionary causes. This investigation covered four transects (traversing ca. 2200 m a.s.l.) encompassing 114 plots of 0.1 ha across a broad latitudinal range (ca. 10°). Using Hill numbers to quantify abundance-based diversity among 37,869 individuals we observed a consistent decrease in taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity as elevation increased, although the decrease was less pronounced for higher Hill orders. The exception was a slight increase in phylogenetic diversity when dominant species were over-weighted. The decrease in taxonomic and functional diversity might be attributed to an environmental filtering process towards highlands, where the increasingly harsher conditions exclude species and functional strategies. Besides, the differences in steepness decrease between Hill orders suggest that rare species disproportionately contribute to functional diversity. For phylogenetic diversity the shifting elevational trend between Hill orders indicates a greater than previously considered influence in central Andean highlands of tropical lowlands originated species with strong niche conservatism relative to distantly related temperate lineages. This could be explained by a decreasing presence and abundance of temperate, extratropical taxa towards the central Andes relative to northern or southern Andes, where they are more prevalent.
AB - Mountains are paramount for exploring biodiversity patterns due to the mosaic of topographies and climates encompassed over short distances. Biodiversity research has traditionally focused on taxonomic diversity when investigating changes along elevational gradients, but other facets should be considered. For first time, we simultaneously assessed elevational trends in taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of woody plants in Andean tropical montane forests and explored their underlying ecological and evolutionary causes. This investigation covered four transects (traversing ca. 2200 m a.s.l.) encompassing 114 plots of 0.1 ha across a broad latitudinal range (ca. 10°). Using Hill numbers to quantify abundance-based diversity among 37,869 individuals we observed a consistent decrease in taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity as elevation increased, although the decrease was less pronounced for higher Hill orders. The exception was a slight increase in phylogenetic diversity when dominant species were over-weighted. The decrease in taxonomic and functional diversity might be attributed to an environmental filtering process towards highlands, where the increasingly harsher conditions exclude species and functional strategies. Besides, the differences in steepness decrease between Hill orders suggest that rare species disproportionately contribute to functional diversity. For phylogenetic diversity the shifting elevational trend between Hill orders indicates a greater than previously considered influence in central Andean highlands of tropical lowlands originated species with strong niche conservatism relative to distantly related temperate lineages. This could be explained by a decreasing presence and abundance of temperate, extratropical taxa towards the central Andes relative to northern or southern Andes, where they are more prevalent.
KW - Altitudinal gradients
KW - Andes
KW - Environmental filtering
KW - Functional rarity
KW - Out of the Tropical Lowlands
KW - Tropical Niche Conservatism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85193028296&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.pld.2024.03.005
DO - 10.1016/j.pld.2024.03.005
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85193028296
SN - 2096-2703
VL - 46
SP - 491
EP - 501
JO - Plant Diversity
JF - Plant Diversity
IS - 4
ER -