Abstract
Understanding what drives the geographic variation of species richness across the globe is a fundamental goal of ecology and biogeography. Environmental variables have been considered as drivers of global diversity patterns but there is no consensus among ecologists on what environmental variables are primary drivers of the geographic variation of species richness. Here, I examine the relationship of woody plant species richness at a regional scale in China with sixteen environmental variables representing energy availability, water availability, energy-water balance, seasonality, and habitat heterogeneity. I found that temperature seasonality is the best predictor of woody species richness in China. Other important environmental variables include annual precipitation, mean temperature of the coldest month, and potential evapotranspiration. The best model explains 85% of the variation in woody plant species richness at the regional scale in China.
Highlights
Species richness varies greatly among different regions across the globe [1]
Based hypotheses may be grouped into a few broad categories such as energy availability, water availability, energy-water balance, seasonality, and habitat heterogeneity but different studies have frequently found different primary forces determining species richness for the same taxa at different spatial scales in the same or different regions (e.g., [6])
This suggests that a full understanding of the origin of geographic variation in species richness requires many more analyses of the relationship between species richness and environmental factors using species richness data for different taxa documented at different spatial scales in different regions
Summary
Species richness varies greatly among different regions across the globe [1]. Understanding what drives the geographic variation of species richness is a fundamental goal of ecology and biogeography. Based hypotheses may be grouped into a few broad categories such as energy availability, water availability, energy-water balance, seasonality, and habitat heterogeneity but different studies have frequently found different primary forces determining species richness for the same taxa at different spatial scales in the same or different regions (e.g., [6]). This suggests that a full understanding of the origin of geographic variation in species richness requires many more analyses of the relationship between species richness and environmental factors using species richness data for different taxa documented at different spatial scales in different regions
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