The Importance of Energy Theory in Shaping Elevational Species Richness Patterns in Plants.

ABSTRACT: Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain elevational species richness patterns; however, evaluating their importance remains a challenge, as mountains that are nested within different biogeographic regions have different environmental attributes. Here, we conducted a comparative study for trees, shrubs, herbs, and ferns along the same elevational gradient for 22 mountains worldwide, examining the performance of hypotheses of energy, tolerance, climatic variability, and spatial area to explain the elevational species richness patterns for each plant group. Results show that for trees and shrubs, energy-related factors exhibit greater explanatory power than other factors, whereas the factors that are associated with climatic variability performed better in explaining the elevational spe

SUBMITTER: Jiang Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9219821 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature