Testing the Functional and Phylogenetic Assembly of Plant Communities in Gobi Deserts of Northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

ABSTRACT: The mechanism governing plant community assembly across large-scale Gobi deserts remains unclear. Here, we inferred the roles of different assembly processes in structuring plant communities in the Gobi deserts of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau by using a phylogenetic tree, and leaf and root traits. The functional and phylogenetic structures of 183 plant communities were assessed, and their distributions were linked with environmental gradients. Our results demonstrated that functional convergence was prevalent in most functional traits (75% of the traits) and accentuated when all traits were combined. The phylogenetic structure exhibited significant divergence. We observed the contrasting response of functional and phylogenetic assembly structures to environmental gradients. More importantly,

SUBMITTER: Wang J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9340061 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature