The mechanism of species coexistence and diversity maintenance along aspects in the northeast of the Qinghai–Tibetan plateau
Minxia Liu A D , Xinyu Wang B , Yibo Ma C and Lu Xu A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A College of Geography and Environmental Science, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou Gansu, China.
B School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, USA.
C Carey School of Business, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, USA.
D Corresponding author. Email: xiaminl@163.com
The Rangeland Journal 43(1) 11-21 https://doi.org/10.1071/RJ20042
Submitted: 20 May 2020 Accepted: 7 May 2021 Published: 5 July 2021
Abstract
To examine the role of plant functional traits and phylogenetic relationships in predicting plant community species coexistence and diversity maintenance, we measured 73 species and six functional traits along a slope aspect gradient on the Qinghai–Tibetan plateau. We calculated the net relatedness index (NRI), the nearest taxon index (NTI), phylogenetic diversity (PD), functional diversity, and analysed phylogenetic signals. The results show that the species richness, plant composition, and PD changed substantially from northern to southern aspects, and the phylogenetic structure of the community changed from clustering to over-dispersion. Weak phylogenetic signals in plant height, leaf nitrogen content, and leaf potassium content were recorded. We conclude that the influencing factor(s) of species coexistence on northern and north-western aspects is limiting similarity (interspecific competition), whereas on southern and south-western aspects, habitat filtering (environmental effect) is predominant. On western aspects, the influencing factors are driven by three processes: limiting similarity, habitat filtration, and random processes. Results suggest that niche processes (including habitat filtration and limiting similarity) are the main mechanisms for species coexistence and diversity maintenance on aspects of the alpine meadow in the northeast of the Qinghai–Tibetan plateau, while random processes appear at the transitional zone (the western aspect in our study) between aspects.
Keywords: ecological communities, ecosystem stability, species persistence, functional trait, phylogenetic signal, niche process, species coexistence, alpine meadow, global warming, Qinghai–Tibetan plateau.
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