Multitrophic diversity in a biodiverse forest is highly nonlinear across spatial scales.

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 biodiversit

SUBMITTER: Schuldt A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4682160 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature