Abstract
Subtropical and tropical forests are biodiversity hotspots, and untangling the spatial scaling of their diversity is fundamental for understanding global species richness and conserving biodiversity essential to human well-being. However, scale-dependent diversity distributions among coexisting taxa remain poorly understood for heterogeneous environments in biodiverse regions. We show that diversity relations among 43 taxa—including plants, arthropods and microorganisms—in a mountainous subtropical forest are highly nonlinear across spatial scales. Taxon-specific differences in β-diversity cause under- or overestimation of overall diversity by up to 50% when using surrogate taxa such as plants. Similar relationships may apply to half of all (sub)tropical forests—including major biodiversity hotspots—where high environmental heterogeneity causes high biodiversity and species turnover. Our study highlights that our general understanding of biodiversity patterns has to be improved—and that much larger areas will be required than in better-studied lowland forests—to reliably estimate biodiversity distributions and devise conservation strategies for the world's biodiverse regions.
Highlights
Subtropical and tropical forests are biodiversity hotspots, and untangling the spatial scaling of their diversity is fundamental for understanding global species richness and conserving biodiversity essential to human well-being
We conducted a comprehensive assessment of the species richness, turnover, and cross-taxon diversity congruence of plants, arthropods and, for the first time, soil microorganisms from the local plot to landscape scales in a highly diverse, and topographically and environmentally heterogeneous, subtropical forest
Our analysis shows that cross-taxon diversity relationships are highly nonlinear across spatial scales, with far-reaching consequences for our understanding of regional and global biodiversity patterns and their conservation
Summary
Subtropical and tropical forests are biodiversity hotspots, and untangling the spatial scaling of their diversity is fundamental for understanding global species richness and conserving biodiversity essential to human well-being. Many highly diverse forests, and many of the world’s biodiversity hotspots[18], are located in mountainous landscapes with heterogeneous topography, which results in a higher b-diversity of many taxa than in more homogeneous lowland forests[9,19] This may have consequences for the design and costs of biodiversity research and conservation, and for species richness estimates at larger spatial scales[19,20]. We conducted a comprehensive assessment of the species richness, turnover, and cross-taxon diversity congruence of plants, arthropods and, for the first time, soil microorganisms from the local plot to landscape scales in a highly diverse, and topographically and environmentally heterogeneous, subtropical forest. Our analysis shows that cross-taxon diversity relationships are highly nonlinear across spatial scales, with far-reaching consequences for our understanding of regional and global biodiversity patterns and their conservation
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