TY - JOUR
T1 - Decoupling species richness variation and spatial turnover in beta diversity across a fragmented landscape
AU - Hu, Guang
AU - Wilson, Maxwell C.
AU - Wu, Jianguo
AU - Yu, Jingjing
AU - Yu, Mingjian
N1 - Funding Information:
The following grant information was disclosed by the authors: National Natural Science Foundation of China: 31570524, 31870401, 31611130181, 31210103908 and 31361123001. National Science Foundation: DEB-1342751, DEB-1342757. Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province: LY15C030005. First Class of Disciplines-B of Zhejiang Province (Civil Engineering) and the 521 Talent Project of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31570524, 31870401, 31611130181, 31210103908 and 31361123001), the National Science Foundation (DEB-1342751, DEB-1342757), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LY15C030005), First Class of Disciplines-B of Zhejiang Province (Civil Engineering) and the 521 Talent Project of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright 2019 Hu et al.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Background: How habitat fragmentation affects the relationship between local richness and the variation in community composition across space is important to both ecology and conservation biology, but this effect remains poorly understood. Methods: Here, we present an empirical study to address this topic in a fragmented landscape, the Thousand Island Lake (TIL), an artificial land-bridge island system with more than 1,000 islands, which provides an "experimental" fragmented landscape with a homogeneous matrix and similar successional history. We measured species composition and plant functional type (PFT) on 29 islands, and tested the effects of island area and isolation on the relationship between a- A nd β-diversity. General Linear Models were applied to test the impact of habitat fragmentation. In addition, variation partitioning was used to decouple a-diversity dependent and a-diversity independent spatial turnover in β-diversity of the plant community and across different PFTs. Results: We found habitat fragmentation influences β-diversity of plants primarily by modifying local a-diversity, not spatial turnover in the TIL system. We also found area-dependent environmental filtering and differential plant responses across functional types were the most likely underlying driving mechanisms. Discussion: These results highlight the importance of hierarchical linkages between components of biodiversity across scales in fragmented landscapes, and have practical conservation implications.
AB - Background: How habitat fragmentation affects the relationship between local richness and the variation in community composition across space is important to both ecology and conservation biology, but this effect remains poorly understood. Methods: Here, we present an empirical study to address this topic in a fragmented landscape, the Thousand Island Lake (TIL), an artificial land-bridge island system with more than 1,000 islands, which provides an "experimental" fragmented landscape with a homogeneous matrix and similar successional history. We measured species composition and plant functional type (PFT) on 29 islands, and tested the effects of island area and isolation on the relationship between a- A nd β-diversity. General Linear Models were applied to test the impact of habitat fragmentation. In addition, variation partitioning was used to decouple a-diversity dependent and a-diversity independent spatial turnover in β-diversity of the plant community and across different PFTs. Results: We found habitat fragmentation influences β-diversity of plants primarily by modifying local a-diversity, not spatial turnover in the TIL system. We also found area-dependent environmental filtering and differential plant responses across functional types were the most likely underlying driving mechanisms. Discussion: These results highlight the importance of hierarchical linkages between components of biodiversity across scales in fragmented landscapes, and have practical conservation implications.
KW - Area effect
KW - Environmental filtering
KW - Isolation
KW - Land-bridge islands
KW - Plant functional type
KW - Thousand island lake
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U2 - 10.7717/peerj.6714
DO - 10.7717/peerj.6714
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074454961
SN - 2167-8359
VL - 2019
JO - PeerJ
JF - PeerJ
IS - 4
M1 - 6714
ER -