Environmental Heterogeneity Affecting Community Assembly Patterns and Phylogenetic Diversity of Three Forest Communities at Mt. Huangshan, China

Studying community assembly has always been a central issue in ecological research and is necessary for understanding mechanisms of species coexistence and biodiversity. Environmental heterogeneity is a driver of biodiversity, but much remains to be learned about how evolutionary processes are affec...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Forests 2022-01, Vol.13 (1), p.133
Main Authors: Lv, Ting, Wang, Ningjie, Xie, Lei, Chen, Shuifei, Zhao, Rong, Feng, Yueyao, Li, Yao, Ding, Hui, Fang, Yanming
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Assembly
Biodiversity
Biogeography
Biological evolution
Coexistence
Community ecology
Data collection
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Ecological research
Environmental factors
Forest communities
Forests
Gene sequencing
Heterogeneity
Investigations
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Plants (botany)
Precipitation
Scenic areas
Shrubs
Species richness
Topography
Trees
Vegetation
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Summary:Studying community assembly has always been a central issue in ecological research and is necessary for understanding mechanisms of species coexistence and biodiversity. Environmental heterogeneity is a driver of biodiversity, but much remains to be learned about how evolutionary processes are affected by environmental factors. We aimed to clarify the evolutionary processes in different vegetation communities in the Huangshan Scenic Area, Anhui Province, China. We constructed a phylogenetic tree of these communities based on a constraint tree and three DNA barcode regions. Community I was characterized by a weakly overdispersed phylogenetic structure for all three plant groups. The structure of Community II showed clustered for total plants and shrubs, overdispersed for trees. However, the phylogenetic structure was clustered for total plants, overdispersed for trees and shrubs in Community III. The main drivers of these patterns were spatial and climatic factors. Phylogenetic α-diversity had a significant positive relationship with species richness. The values of phylogenetic β-diversity reached their maximum at intermediate elevations among three vegetation communities for total plants. The main factors that affected diversity patterns were spatial variables, not climatic factors, indicating that environmental heterogeneity determined the mechanisms of biodiversity and species coexistence in the community. Our results showed that deterministic processes may control community assembly in three different vegetation regions.
ISSN:1999-4907
1999-4907
DOI:10.3390/f13010133