Evaluating the effect of habitat diversity on the speciesarea relationship using land-bridge islands in Thousand Island Lake,China

DEAR EDITOR：The species-area relationship（SAR）describes the phenomenon whereby the number of plant and animal species found in an area of wild habitat is strongly correlated with the size of that area.As one of the few ecological laws,the SAR plays a vital role in the design and assessment of biodiversity protection regions（Lomolino et al,2010;Ladle＆Whittaker,2011）.Increasing area and habitat promote species richness（Triantis et al,2003）and both these mechanisms have

Numerical investigation of flow with floating vegetation island

Floating vegetation island(FVI)provides an effective way to remove excessive nutrition and pollutants in rivers.The Reynolds stress model(RSM)is employed to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics induced by varied canopy densities of FVI in an open channel.In longitudinal direction,four regions are subdivided according to the flow development process:upstream adjustment region(LUD),diverging flow region(LDF),shear layer growth region(LSD),and flilly developed region.The increasing canopy density accelerates the flow adjustment in the diverging flow region and shear layer growth region,signaling a shorter distance to reach an equilibrium stage,while LUD keeps a constant.The vertical profiles of the normalized velocity are found to be self-similar downstream of the diverging flow region.In the vertical direction,the streamwise velocity profiles in the mixing layer collapse for all densities and obey the hyperbolic tangent law.Normalized penetration depth into the canopy was fitted as a function of dimensionless canopy density given by δc/hc=0.404(CDahc)^-0.316.This finding indicates a large space for rapid water renewal between the canopy region and the underlying water driven by the shear-scale vortices.In the lateral direction,the intensification of secondary current and the increasing number of secondary current cells with increasing canopy density reveal that dense floating canopies contribute to strong momentum exchange.The centers of vortices move as canopy density increases,while the vortices in canopy region do not merge with those in the gap region,as limited by the height and width of the canopy region.The distribution of longitudinal velocity in the transects is significantly influenced by secondary current.

Vegetation Mapping of the Mond Protected Area of Bushehr Province(South-west Iran)

Arid regions of the world occupy up to 35% of the earth＇s surface, the basis of various definitions of climatic conditions, vegetation types or potential for food production. Due to their high ecological value, monitoring of arid regions is necessary and modern vegetation studies can help in the conservation and management of these areas. The use of remote sensing for mapping of desert vegetation is difficult due to mixing of the spectral reflectance of bright desert soils with the weak spectral response of sparse vegetation. We studied the vegetation types in the semiarid to arid region of Mond Protected Area, south-west Iran, based on unsupervised classification of the Spot XS bands and then produced updated maps. Sixteen map units covering 12 vegetation types were recognized in the area based on both field works and satellite mapping. Halocnemum strobilaceum and Suaeda fruticosa vegetation types were the dominant types and Ephedra foliata, Salicornia europaea-Suaeda heterophylla vegetation types were the smallest. Vegetation coverage decreased sharply with the increase in salinity towards the coastal areas of the Persian Gulf. The highest vegetation coverage belonged to the riparian vegetation along the Mond River, which represents the northern boundary of the protected area. The location of vegetation types was studied on the separate soil and habitat diversity maps of the study area, which helped in final refinements of the vegetation map produced.

Soil and altitude drive diversity and functioning of Brazilian Páramos(campo de altitude)

Aims the vegetation on Brazilian Páramos consists of assemblages that are driven mainly by the influence of strong environmental filtering.It is very important to understand the effect of environmental varia-tion on taxonomic diversity and on functional diversity.considering the lack of information about the functional diversity in Brazilian Páramos,we analyzed for the first time the effects of altitude and edaphic attributes on functional traits,as well as on taxonomic and functional diversity.We also wanted to answer the questions:Which ecological strategies are favorable in high-altitude grassland?Does soil attributes determine distributions of traits in high-altitude grassland?considering the studied altitudinal gradient is altitude an important variable in the community assembly?Methods the study was conducted on three mountains:Mammoth(1850 m),Elephant(1790 m)and totem(1690 m)in Serra do Brigadeiro State Park,Minas Gerais State,Brazil.those mountains represent the‘Serra das cabeças’,a smaller ridge that is surrounded by the Atlantic Forest,one of the 25 hotspot of biodiversity.the samples were taken using 100 plots of 1 m2 per mountain that were randomly distributed.All plants except mosses were sampled.the taxonomic diversity was evaluated using richness,Shannon diversity,effective number of species and Pielou evenness.For the functional diver-sity,we considered the functional richness,functional evenness and functional divergence.Generalized linear models(GLM/Poisson and quasi-Poisson)were used to evaluate the effect of abiotic variables(altitude,soil depth and soil chemical attributes)on biotic variables(number of species and individuals,life form,dispersal and fruit type)and ordinary least squares regression to evaluate the effect of abiotic variables on the functional and taxonomic diversity.Important Findingsthe soil variables presented a considerable edaphic gradient associated with altitude.the soil in Serra das cabeças plays an important role for the plant diversity:richness and diversity index were positively related with fertility.With regard to the life form,nanophanerophytes tended to increase with altitude and soil depth,while therophytes tended to decrease with altitude.the dispersal type was also associated with the abiotic variables:autochory decreases with altitude,while zoochory increases.Functional richness increases with fertility and the functional evenness with altitude.the studied gradient showed that altitude is working as a filter for functional traits and indices and is,together with soil attributes,an important determinant for the distribution of plants on Brazilian Páramos.