Geographic patterns and environmental correlates of taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity for large-scale angiosperm assemblages in China

Place: Hoboken Publisher: Wiley WOS:000552511100001International audienceA full understanding of the origin and maintenance of beta-diversity patterns in a region requires exploring the relationships of both taxonomic and phylogenetic beta-diversity (TBD and PBD, respectively), and their respective turnover and nestedness components, with geographic and environmental distances. Here, we simultaneously investigated all these aspects of beta-diversity for angiosperms in China. Specifically, we evaluated the relative importance of environmental filtering vs dispersal limitation processes in shaping beta-diversity patterns. We found that TBD and PBD as quantified using a moving window approach decreased towards higher latitudes across the whole of China, and their turnover components were correlated with latitude more strongly than their nestedness components. When quantifying beta-diversity as pairwise distances, geographic and climatic distances across China together explained 60 and 53% of the variation in TBD and PBD, respectively. After the variation in beta-diversity explained by climatic distance was accounted for, geographic distance independently explained about 23 and 12% of the variation in TBD and PBD, respectively, across China. Overall, our results suggest that environmental filtering based on climatic tolerance conserved across lineages is the main force shaping beta-diversity patterns for angiosperms in China