Abstract
Maritime Antarctica is one of the major terrestrial ecosystems dominated by lichens and mosses, which represent important ecological indicators. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the changes in associated communities of mosses-lichens diversity and coverage along a pedoenvironmental gradient on Half Moon Island, Maritime Antarctica. We focused on how patterns in associated communities of mosses-lichens species diversity (richness, species composition and beta diversity) and coverage are associated with soil properties using plant inventory data from 174 plots across 14 contrasting pedoenvironments. The results clearly show marked differences in soil properties along the pedoenvironmental gradient, which determine variations in species composition, richness and coverage. We presumed that these variations are common in Maritime Antarctica owing to varying periglacial processes, weathering degree, parent material and biological influence (especially by penguins and other birds). The community species richness and coverage along the pedoenvironmental gradient differ, nevertheless share common species present in most pedoenvironments, despite differences in coverage. We assume that most of the pedoenvironments are habitats to rare species that occur only under specific soil conditions, additionally promotes high β-diversity between pedoenvironments and low species similarity.
Highlights
Understanding how soil gradients shape plant community diversity and structure represents an important question in ecology (Pekin et al 2012, Hernández-Hernández et al 2017)
We aimed to evaluate the changes species composition, diversity and coverage in mosses-lichens communities along a pedoenvironmental gradient on Half Moon Island, Maritime Antarctica
We focused on how patterns in mosses-lichens species composition and richness, and coverage with soil properties using species inventory data from 174 plots across 14 contrasting pedoenvironments
Summary
Understanding how soil gradients shape plant community diversity and structure represents an important question in ecology (Pekin et al 2012, Hernández-Hernández et al 2017). Pekin et al 2012, Villa et al 2018) These patterns in plant community assembly reflected changes in species diversity (i.e. species richness, community composition), and structure (e.g. plant coverage) along soil properties gradients (i.e. soil fertility and depth filtering) based on multivariate analyses The relative importance of spatial dissimilarities in associated communities of mosses-lichens species composition (β-diversity) as ecological indicators along soil gradients remains poorly understood. In this context, changes in mosseslichens species diversity along soil gradients can be significantly given ongoing climate change, affecting their response to rising global temperatures (e.g. Robinson et al 2018)
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