Environmental Filtering Effect Drives the Plant Species Distribution in Alpine Grasslands on the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau
ABSTRACT Exploring community assembly is essential for understanding the mechanisms of biodiversity maintenance and species coexistence. In general, stochastic (e.g., dispersal limitation) and deterministic (e.g., environmental filtering) effects have been identified as the two key processes driving...
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2025-06-01
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| Series: | Ecology and Evolution |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71599 |
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| author | Yikang Cheng Ding Li Nadia I. Maaroufi Jianling You Wen Zhou Wensheng Liu Danhui Qi Xiang Liu Yuguo Wang Xiaoyun Pan Wenju Zhang Ji Yang Shurong Zhou Zhiping Song |
| author_facet | Yikang Cheng Ding Li Nadia I. Maaroufi Jianling You Wen Zhou Wensheng Liu Danhui Qi Xiang Liu Yuguo Wang Xiaoyun Pan Wenju Zhang Ji Yang Shurong Zhou Zhiping Song |
| author_sort | Yikang Cheng |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | ABSTRACT Exploring community assembly is essential for understanding the mechanisms of biodiversity maintenance and species coexistence. In general, stochastic (e.g., dispersal limitation) and deterministic (e.g., environmental filtering) effects have been identified as the two key processes driving community assembly. However, the relative contributions of these two processes and how they vary across different spatial scales remain poorly understood, especially for the high‐diversity grassland ecosystems on Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau (QTP), which plays a critical role in global climate regulation. In this study, a total of 27 study sites were established along a north–south transect and a west–east transect across the eastern QTP; the two furthest sites were more than 1000 km apart. We analyzed the taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity and structure of these communities to elucidate the relative importance of dispersal limitation and environmental filtering effects that shape plant distributions at the regional (i.e., encompassing all sites) and the transect scales. A total of 181 species belonging to 99 genera and 34 families of vascular plants were found across all sample sites. Both at the regional and the transect scale, environmental variables were shown to account for a larger proportion of the variation in species composition than spatial variables. Likewise, the plant species diversity (i.e., taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity) was also primarily influenced by soil and climatic variables rather than by spatial factors. Specifically, mean annual precipitation, mean annual temperature, and soil total carbon content emerged as critical determinants of plant species diversity at the regional scale, while the mean annual temperature was identified as the most important factor at the transect scale. Our results highlight the significance of environmental filtering, rather than dispersal limitation, in shaping plant community dynamics across various spatial scales within the alpine grassland ecosystem, which has crucial implications for plant conservation and biodiversity maintenance under global change scenarios. |
| format | Article |
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| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2045-7758 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
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| series | Ecology and Evolution |
| spelling | doaj-art-987d0e6a82e749fea4fa061a57f0ac3f2025-08-20T03:33:26ZengWileyEcology and Evolution2045-77582025-06-01156n/an/a10.1002/ece3.71599Environmental Filtering Effect Drives the Plant Species Distribution in Alpine Grasslands on the Qinghai‐Tibetan PlateauYikang Cheng0Ding Li1Nadia I. Maaroufi2Jianling You3Wen Zhou4Wensheng Liu5Danhui Qi6Xiang Liu7Yuguo Wang8Xiaoyun Pan9Wenju Zhang10Ji Yang11Shurong Zhou12Zhiping Song13State Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaState Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaDepartment of Soil and Environment Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Uppsala SwedenState Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaState Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaState Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaCollege of Environmental Science and Engineering Southwest Forestry University Kunming ChinaState Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agroecosystems, College of Ecology Lanzhou University Lanzhou ChinaState Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaState Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaState Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaState Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaSchool of Ecology Hainan University Haikou ChinaState Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of eco‐Chongming, School of Life Sciences Fudan University Shanghai ChinaABSTRACT Exploring community assembly is essential for understanding the mechanisms of biodiversity maintenance and species coexistence. In general, stochastic (e.g., dispersal limitation) and deterministic (e.g., environmental filtering) effects have been identified as the two key processes driving community assembly. However, the relative contributions of these two processes and how they vary across different spatial scales remain poorly understood, especially for the high‐diversity grassland ecosystems on Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau (QTP), which plays a critical role in global climate regulation. In this study, a total of 27 study sites were established along a north–south transect and a west–east transect across the eastern QTP; the two furthest sites were more than 1000 km apart. We analyzed the taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity and structure of these communities to elucidate the relative importance of dispersal limitation and environmental filtering effects that shape plant distributions at the regional (i.e., encompassing all sites) and the transect scales. A total of 181 species belonging to 99 genera and 34 families of vascular plants were found across all sample sites. Both at the regional and the transect scale, environmental variables were shown to account for a larger proportion of the variation in species composition than spatial variables. Likewise, the plant species diversity (i.e., taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity) was also primarily influenced by soil and climatic variables rather than by spatial factors. Specifically, mean annual precipitation, mean annual temperature, and soil total carbon content emerged as critical determinants of plant species diversity at the regional scale, while the mean annual temperature was identified as the most important factor at the transect scale. Our results highlight the significance of environmental filtering, rather than dispersal limitation, in shaping plant community dynamics across various spatial scales within the alpine grassland ecosystem, which has crucial implications for plant conservation and biodiversity maintenance under global change scenarios.https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71599alpine ecosystembiodiversity maintenancecommunity assemblydeterministic processspatial scalestochastic process |
| spellingShingle | Yikang Cheng Ding Li Nadia I. Maaroufi Jianling You Wen Zhou Wensheng Liu Danhui Qi Xiang Liu Yuguo Wang Xiaoyun Pan Wenju Zhang Ji Yang Shurong Zhou Zhiping Song Environmental Filtering Effect Drives the Plant Species Distribution in Alpine Grasslands on the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau Ecology and Evolution alpine ecosystem biodiversity maintenance community assembly deterministic process spatial scale stochastic process |
| title | Environmental Filtering Effect Drives the Plant Species Distribution in Alpine Grasslands on the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau |
| title_full | Environmental Filtering Effect Drives the Plant Species Distribution in Alpine Grasslands on the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau |
| title_fullStr | Environmental Filtering Effect Drives the Plant Species Distribution in Alpine Grasslands on the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau |
| title_full_unstemmed | Environmental Filtering Effect Drives the Plant Species Distribution in Alpine Grasslands on the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau |
| title_short | Environmental Filtering Effect Drives the Plant Species Distribution in Alpine Grasslands on the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau |
| title_sort | environmental filtering effect drives the plant species distribution in alpine grasslands on the qinghai tibetan plateau |
| topic | alpine ecosystem biodiversity maintenance community assembly deterministic process spatial scale stochastic process |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71599 |
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