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The interactions between climate and soil factors influence the taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of woody plants in subtropical karst region

biodiversity
ecology
plant-science
population-biology

Abstract

The woody plants in subtropical forests are one of the most important long-term carbon sinks in the terrestrial ecosystems. However, its diversity patterns and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. To explore the diversity patterns of woody plants in subtropical forests, based on the census data of 180 forest dynamics monitoring plots in Guizhou province, this study assessed the effects of climate and soil factors, and their interactions on taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity using the negative binomial regression model. The results indicated that the climate and soil factors can both obviously improved the accuracy of predictions, with an even more significant improvement when the interactions between climate and soil factors were taken into account ( R² = 0.774 for taxonomic diversity and R² = 0.742 for phylogenetic diversity ) . Furthermore, a lthough some soil factors such as rock fragment content and alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen had weak effects on taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity, the effect of interactions between these two sets of factors was significantly stronger than that of any single type of factors, which played a significant role in shaping the diversity patterns of woody plants in subtropical forest s. This study emphasizes the importance of environmental factors and their interactions in diversity patterns and community assembly of subtropical forest, which can provide empirical support for a deeper understanding of subtropical forest community dynamics and assembly mechanisms.
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