Abstract
The roles of natural and anthropogenic factors in contributing to the organization of biodiversity at large and small scales have long been challenging to disentangle, and doing so has never been attempted for the island province of Hainan in China based on patterns of taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of endemic plants on the island as a function of anthropogenic and natural variables based on non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS) ordination and generated generalized linear models (GLMs). We found that the highest phylogenetic diversity (1006) and the lowest mean phylogenetic distance (515.5) was in the provincial capital, Haikou. The NMDS analyses indicated that taxonomic diversity was significantly correlated with industrial revenue (p = 0.006) and population (p = 0.004). Furthermore, most phylogenetic diversity indices were strongly correlated with population and agricultural revenue, while the sampled natural environmental variables were not significantly correlated with plant diversity indices. These findings indicate that anthropogenic factors are the main present-day driving forces of plant diversity in Hainan, though we did detect a significant latitudinal diversity gradient of richness that likely reflects the historical roles of natural environmental factors in the organization of biodiversity on the island. Overall, our results are alarming for biodiversity of the island and indicate that conservation and sustainable use of endemic plant species must be made a critical priority.
Highlights
In modern times, it has been frequently debated whether natural or anthropogenic variables are the dominant drivers of patterns of biodiversity within a given area
Within the urbanized area of Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Hope et al [1] found that anthropogenic factors drove urban plant diversity; especially that greater economic activity and higher human population was correlated with greater plant diversity
In the analyses of mean phylogenetic distance (MPD), we found that phylogenetic diversity was significantly over-dispersed in Haikou [net relatedness index (NRI) < 0, p > 0.95]
Summary
It has been frequently debated whether natural or anthropogenic variables are the dominant drivers of patterns of biodiversity within a given area. Anthropogenic factors are stronger drivers of patterns of endemic plant diversity on Hainan Island of China conducted for urban areas of New Zealand [2], Australia [3], and China [4, 5]. Anthropogenic climate change has created new challenges for biodiversity conservation because it leads to exacerbated species loss, with increasing numbers of species facing major threats on a large scale [6, 7]. Whether natural environmental or anthropogenic factors are stronger drivers of plant diversity at various geographic scales remains unclear
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