Altitudinal patterns of plant diversity on the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, southwestern China.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Understanding altitudinal patterns of biological diversity and their underlying mechanisms is critically important for biodiversity conservation in mountainous regions. The contribution of area to plant diversity patterns is widely acknowledged and may mask the effects of other determinant factors. In this context, it is important to examine altitudinal patterns of corrected taxon richness by eliminating the area effect. Here we adopt two methods to correct observed taxon richness: a power-law relationship between richness and area, hereafter "method 1"; and richness counted in equal-area altitudinal bands, hereafter "method 2". We compare these two methods on the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, which is the nearest large-scale altitudinal gradient to the Equator in the North

SUBMITTER: Xu X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5023648 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature