Endemic medicinal plant distribution correlated with stable climate,precipitation,and cultural diversity

Medicinal plants provide crucial ecosystem services,especially in developing countries such as China,which harbors diverse endemic medicinal plant species with substantial cultural and economic value.Accordingly,understanding the patterns and drivers of medicinal plant distribution is critical.However,few studies have investigated the patterns and drivers of endemic medicinal plants distribution in China.Here,we linked endemic medicinal plants distribution with possible explanatory variables,i.e.,paleoclimate change,contemporary climate,altitudinal range and ethnic minority human population size at the prefecture city level in China.Our results show that endemic medicinal plants are concentrated in southern China,especially in southwestern China.Notably,both endemic medicinal plant species richness and the ratio of endemic medicinal plant species richness are negatively associated with glacialinterglacial anomaly in temperature,and positively associated with contemporary precipitation and altitudinal range.In addition,we found that endemic medicinal plant species richness is positively associated with ethnic minority population sizes as well as its ratio to the overall population size.These findings suggest that the distribution of endemic medicinal plants is determined by multiple drivers.Furthermore,our findings stress that dramatic future climate changes and massive anthropogenic activities in southern China pose great challenges to the conservation of China's endemic medicinal plants.

Spatial phylogenetics of the Chinese angiosperm flora provides insights into endemism and conservation

The flora of China is well known for its high diversity and endemism. Identifying centers of endemism and designating conservation priorities are essential goals for biodiversity studies.However, there is no comprehensive study from a rigorous phylogenetic perspective to understand patterns of diversity and endemism and to guide biodiversity conservation in China. We conducted a spatial phylogenetic analysis of the Chinese angiosperm flora at the generic level to identify centers of neo-and paleoendemism. Our results indicate that:(i) themajority of grid cells in China with significantly high phylogenetic endemism(PE) were located in the mountainous regions;(ii) four of the nine centers of endemism recognized, located in northern and western China, were recognized for the first time;(iii) arid and semiarid regions in Northwest China were commonly linked to significant PE, consistent with other spatial phylogenetic studies worldwide;and(iv) six highpriority conservation gaps were detected by overlaying the boundaries of China’s nature reserves on all significant PE cells. Overall, we conclude that the mountains of southern and northern China contain both paleo-endemics(ancient relictual lineages) and neo-endemics(recently diverged lineages). The areas we highlight as conservation priorities are important for broad-scale planning, especially in the context of evolutionary history preservation.

寒带森林中最大冠层高度与群落系统发育结构相关

了解最大冠层高度和森林群落构建的关系至关重要,但相关研究较少。最大冠层高度受到不同生态过程(如生态位分化和环境过滤),以及历史和随机因素的影响。然而,对影响冠层最大高度的生态过程的实证研究仍较少。本研究旨在揭示最大冠层高度与群落系统发育结构之间的关系。首先,我们从一项加拿大阿尔伯塔省东北部北方森林样方调查数据集(466个50 m×50 m的采样点)中调查了最大树冠高度。在此基础上,以净谱系亲缘关系指数(NRI)和净最近种间亲缘关系指数(NTI)表征样方中种子植物的系统发育结构,探讨了机载激光雷达测量的最大冠层高度与群落系统发育结构的关系。研究结果表明,最大冠层高度越高,主要进化分枝间的系统发育越聚集,这说明北方森林中存在非生物因子驱动的环境过滤。然而我们也发现,在每个主要演化分支内部,最大冠层高度更高的群落中系统发育结构更发散,这意味着其生态位分化更强烈。总之,最大冠层高度越高的群落可能经历了更强烈的历史非生物环境过滤和近期的生态位分化。这些发现将有助于森林生物多样性的监测和管理。