Spatial patterns and climatic drivers of phylogenetic structure of regional liverwort assemblages in China.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Latitudinal diversity gradients have been intimately linked to the tropical niche conservatism hypothesis, which posits that there has been a strong filter due to the challenges faced by ancestral tropical lineages to adapt to low temperatures and colonize extra-tropical regions. In liverworts, species richness is higher towards the tropics, but the centres of diversity of the basal lineages are distributed across extra-tropical regions, pointing to the colonization of tropical regions by phylogenetically clustered assemblages of species of temperate origin. Here, we test this hypothesis through analyses of the relationship between macroclimatic variation and phylogenetic diversity in Chinese liverworts.

Methods

Phylogenetic diversity metrics and their st

SUBMITTER: Qian H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11341670 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature