Seed traits and phylogeny explain plants' geographic distribution
<p>Understanding the mechanisms that shape the geographic distribution of plant species is a central theme of biogeography. Although seed mass, seed dispersal mode and phylogeny have long been suspected to affect species distribution, the link between the sources of variation in these attribut...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2022-10-01
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| Series: | Biogeosciences |
| Online Access: | https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/19/4801/2022/bg-19-4801-2022.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>Understanding the mechanisms that shape the geographic
distribution of plant species is a central theme of biogeography. Although
seed mass, seed dispersal mode and phylogeny have long been suspected to
affect species distribution, the link between the sources of variation in
these attributes and their effects on the distribution of seed plants are
poorly documented. This study aims to quantify the joint effects of key seed
traits and phylogeny on species distribution. We collected the seed mass and
seed dispersal mode from 1426 species of seed plants representing 501
genera of 122 families and used 4 138 851 specimens to model species
distributional range size. Phylogenetic generalized least-squares regression
and variation partitioning were performed to estimate the effects of seed
mass, seed dispersal mode and phylogeny on species distribution. We found
that species distributional range size was significantly constrained by
phylogeny. Seed mass and its intraspecific variation were also important in
limiting species distribution, but their effects were different among
species with different dispersal modes. Variation partitioning revealed that
seed mass, seed mass variability, seed dispersal mode and phylogeny together
explained 46.82 % of the variance in species range size. Although seed
traits are not typically used to model the geographic distributions of seed
plants, our study provides direct evidence showing seed mass, seed dispersal
mode and phylogeny are important in explaining species geographic
distribution. This finding underscores the necessity to include seed traits
and the phylogenetic history of species in climate-based niche models for
predicting the response of plant geographic distribution to climate change.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1726-4170 1726-4189 |