Global patterns and drivers of alpine plant species richness

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Authors

TESTOLIN Riccardo ATTORRE Fabio BORCHARDT Peter BRAND Robert F. BRUELHEIDE Helge CHYTRÝ Milan DE SANCTIS M. DOLEZAL Jiri FINCKH Manfred HAIDER Sylvia HEMP Andreas JANDT Ute KESSLER Michael KOROLYUK Andrey Yu LENOIR Jonathan MAKUNINA Natalia MALANSON George P. MONTESINOS-TUBÉE Daniel B. NOROOZI Jalil NOWAK Arkadiusz PEET Robert K. PEYRE Gwendolyn SABATINI Francesco Maria ŠIBÍK Jozef SKLENÁŘ Petr SYLVESTER Steven P. VASSILEV Kiril VIRTANEN Risto WILLNER Wolfgang WISER Susan K. ZIBZEEV Evgeny G. JIMÉNEZ-ALFARO Borja

Year of publication 2021
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Global ecology and biogeography
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Web https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13297
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/geb.13297
Keywords Alpine vegetation; biodiversity hotspots; biogeographical history; global patterns; multiscale analysis; plant species richness
Description Aim Alpine ecosystems differ in area, macroenvironment and biogeographical history across the Earth, but the relationship between these factors and plant species richness is still unexplored. Here, we assess the global patterns of plant species richness in alpine ecosystems and their association with environmental, geographical and historical factors at regional and community scales. Location Global. Time period Data collected between 1923 and 2019. Major taxa studied Vascular plants. Methods We used a dataset representative of global alpine vegetation, consisting of 8,928 plots sampled within 26 ecoregions and six biogeographical realms, to estimate regional richness using sample-based rarefaction and extrapolation. Then, we evaluated latitudinal patterns of regional and community richness with generalized additive models. Using environmental, geographical and historical predictors from global raster layers, we modelled regional and community richness in a mixed-effect modelling framework. Results The latitudinal pattern of regional richness peaked around the equator and at mid-latitudes, in response to current and past alpine area, isolation and the variation in soil pH among regions. At the community level, species richness peaked at mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, despite a considerable within-region variation. Community richness was related to macroclimate and historical predictors, with strong effects of other spatially structured factors. Main conclusions In contrast to the well-known latitudinal diversity gradient, the alpine plant species richness of some temperate regions in Eurasia was comparable to that of hyperdiverse tropical ecosystems, such as the paramo. The species richness of these putative hotspot regions is explained mainly by the extent of alpine area and their glacial history, whereas community richness depends on local environmental factors. Our results highlight hotspots of species richness at mid-latitudes, indicating that the diversity of alpine plants is linked to regional idiosyncrasies and to the historical prevalence of alpine ecosystems, rather than current macroclimatic gradients.
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