Community-level phylogenetic diversity does not differ between rare and common lineages across tallgrass prairies in the northern Great Plains.

ABSTRACT: Niche differentiation has served as one explanation for species coexistence, and phylogenetic relatedness provides a means to approximate how ecologically similar species are to each other. To explore the contribution of rare species to community phylogenetic diversity, we sampled 21 plant communities across the Prairie Coteau ecoregion, an area of high conservation concern. We used breakpoint analysis through the iterative addition of less abundant species to the phylogenetic tree for each community to assess the contribution of rare species to community phylogenetic diversity. We also quantify the phylogenetic signal of abundance using Blomberg's K statistic and calculated the phylogenetic similarity between rare and common species using a phylogenetic beta-diversity metric (D

SUBMITTER: Herzog SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9627050 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature