Seasonal distribution and prevalence of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) in Kurukshetra,Northern India

A total of 8306 individuals as 29 species from 3 subfamilies (Hybosorinae, Aphodiinae, Scarabaeinae) were trapped by pitfall bait trapping. The maximum number of species of Scarabaeinae (68.97%) and number of individuals of Aphodiinae (56.84%) take part in the formation of a community. The number of species, number of individuals, diversity and dominance changes throughout the season. Seasonal prevalence of 82.76% of species and 50.81% of individuals was found in June. Aphodius campestris was found to be more attracted to the pitfall bait traps. The beetle community found in May shows the maximum Shannon's Diversity Index (2.46) but Margalef's Diversity Index was highest in August (3.06). Environmental factors play an important role in the occurrence and abundance of dung beetles. In the present study non-significant but positive correlations between temperature and species richness, abundance and diversity were found. Percent relative humidity showed a positive correlation with abundance only, and negative correlations with species richness and diversity.     

Altitudinal biodiversity patterns of seed plants along Gongga Mountain in the southeastern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

The mechanisms underlying elevation patterns in species and phylogenetic diversity remain a central issue in ecology and are vital for effective biodiversity conservation in the mountains. Gongga Mountain, located in the southeastern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, represents one of the longest elevational gradients (ca. 6,500 m, from ca. 1,000 to 7,556 m) in the world for studying species diversity patterns. However, the elevational gradient and conservation of plant species diversity and phylogenetic diversity in this mountain remain poorly studied. Here, we compiled the elevational distributions of 2,667 native seed plant species occurring in Gongga Mountain, and estimated the species diversity, phylogenetic diversity, species density, and phylogenetic relatedness across ten elevation belts and five vegetation zones. The results indicated that species diversity and phylogenetic diversity of all seed plants showed a hump‐shaped pattern, peaking at 1,800–2,200 m. Species diversity was significantly correlated with phylogenetic diversity and species density. The floras in temperate coniferous broad‐leaved mixed forests, subalpine coniferous forests, and alpine shrublands and meadows were significantly phylogenetically clustered, whereas the floras in evergreen broad‐leaved forests had phylogenetically random structure. Both climate and human pressure had strong correlation with species diversity, phylogenetic diversity, and phylogenetic structure of seed plants. Our results suggest that the evergreen broad‐leaved forests and coniferous broad‐leaved mixed forests at low to mid elevations deserve more conservation efforts. This study improves our understanding on the elevational gradients of species and phylogenetic diversity and their determinants and provides support for improvement of seed plant conservation in Gongga Mountain.     

Deep phylogeny,net primary productivity,and global body size gradient in birds

Body size is evolutionarily constrained, but the influence of phylogenetic relationships on global body size (i.e. body mass) gradients is unexplored. We quantify and map the family‐level phylogenetic and non‐phylogenetic structure of the global gradient of birds, evaluating the extent to which it is influenced by phylogenetic inertia in contrast to heat conservation, resource availability, starvation resistance, niche conservatism, or interspecific competition. Phylogenetic eigenvector regression (PVR) partitioned the global bird body size gradient into phylogenetically autocorrelated (PA) and phylogenetically independent (PI) components. Simple, piecewise, and partial regressions were used to investigate associations between the PA and PI components of body size and environmental correlates, and to quantify independent and overlapping contributions of environment, phylogenetic autocorrelation, and species richness to the body size gradient. Two‐thirds of the geographic variation in bird body size can be explained by phylogenetic relationships at the family level. The global variation in body size, independent of phylogenetic relationships, is most strongly associated with net primary productivity, which is consistent with ‘starvation resistance’. However, the New and Old worlds have very different patterns. We found no independent association of species richness with body size. Despite major unresolved regional differences, deep phylogenetic relationships, heat conservation, and starvation resistance probably operate in concert in shaping the global bird body size gradient in different parts of the world. © 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ?? , ??–??.     

中国盐生植物系统发育多样性及省域差异性

植物系统发育多样性研究服务于区域植被历史、演化规律、生物多样性保护,盐生植物作为区域植被演化的独特类群和未来农业种质资源开发的重要物质基础,其区域系统发育多样性对于揭示区域环境变化、盐生植物种质资源保护、区域开发具有重要意义,但目前为止,这方面的研究匮乏。本文应用植物系统发育多样性理论和方法,以省级行政区为单位,系统评价中国盐生植物系统发育多样性和差异性,构建65科484种,17变种,8亚种盐生植物系统发育树;净谱系亲缘关系指数大于0的只有新疆维吾尔自治区、宁夏回族自治区、甘肃省、青海省、陕西省、内蒙古自治区和北京市;系统发育多样性与科、属、种级物种丰富度相关性依次为67.01%、91.20%和96.99%;根据盐生植物分类学组成相似性和系统发育组成相似性把中国盐生植物分为4大区域。本文结果对于省级行政区域盐生植物资源评估、盐生植物种质资源收集和中国盐生植物分区具有重要的指导意义。     

Contrasting patterns of phylogenetic diversity across climatic zones of Western Ghats: A biodiversity hotspot in peninsular India

This study attempts to understand the biogeographic history of the Western Ghats forests by investigating decoupling between phylogenetic and taxonomic diversity. We specifically test whether the deciduous forests have been recently established, whether the southern region was a refuge, and whether the deciduous and evergreen forest species have disparate evolutionary histories. We used species composition data from 23 forest types along the Western Ghats for all woody angiosperms above 10‐cm diameter at breast height. Forests were broadly grouped as either evergreen or deciduous. Mean phylogenetic distances corrected for species richness and mean phylogenetic beta diversity corrected for shared species were assessed using z‐scores from null distributions. Null distributions were generated by randomizing the species relationships on the phylogeny. We found that all evergreen forests showed a greater phylogenetic diversity as compared with null expectations. Deciduous forests showed the inverse pattern. Within the evergreen belt, there was a decreasing phylogenetic diversity from south to north, as predicted by the southern refuge hypothesis. The phylogenetic beta diversity across evergreen–deciduous forests was lesser than the null expectation, whereas it was much higher across forests within the evergreen belt. This study provides the first phylogenetic evidence for the antiquity of evergreen forests as well as the southern refuge hypothesis in the Western Ghats. The deciduous forests species have shared evolutionary histories with the evergreen forest species, suggesting multiple shifts between evergreen and deciduous states through the lineages. Conversely, the evergreen species exhibited a disparate evolutionary history across these forests, possibly owing to sharper ecological or climatic gradients.     

Size matters for lice on birds: Coevolutionary allometry of host and parasite body size

Body size is one of the most fundamental characteristics of all organisms. It influences physiology, morphology, behavior, and even interspecific interactions such as those between parasites and their hosts. Host body size influences the magnitude and variability of parasite size according to Harrison's rule (HR: positive relationship between host and parasite body sizes) and Poulin's Increasing Variance Hypothesis (PIVH: positive relationship between host body size and the variability of parasite body size). We analyzed parasite–host body size allometry for 581 species of avian lice (～15% of known diversity) and their hosts. We applied phylogenetic generalized least squares (PGLS) methods to account for phylogenetic nonindependence controlling for host and parasite phylogenies separately and variance heterogeneity. We tested HR and PIVH for the major families of avian lice (Ricinidae, Menoponidae, Philopteridae), and for distinct ecological guilds within Philopteridae. Our data indicate that most families and guilds of avian lice follow both HR and PIVH; however, ricinids did not follow PIVH and the “body lice” guild of philopterid lice did not follow HR or PIVH. We discuss mathematical and ecological factors that may be responsible for these patterns, and we discuss the potential pervasiveness of these relationships among all parasites on Earth.     

戴云山物种多样性与系统发育多样性海拔梯度分布格局及驱动因子

生物多样性的海拔分布格局是生态学研究的热点。海拔作为综合性因子驱动着植物群落的物种、系统发育与功能多样性的空间分布。以戴云山南坡900-1600 m森林植物群落为研究对象,探讨物种多样性、系统发育指数与环境驱动因子的相互关系以及环境因子在群落构建与多样性维持中的重要意义。结果表明：（1）森林植物群落的系统发育多样性与物种多样性沿海拔均呈现中间高度膨胀格局。（2）物种多样性Margalef指数、Shannon-Wiener指数与系统发育多样性指数呈显著正相关,表明物种多样性越高,系统发育多样性也越高。Shannon-Wiener指数与物种多样性指数（Margalef、Pielou、Simpson指数）、系统发育多样性及系统发育结构都存在显著相关性,一定程度上Shannon-Wiener指数可以代替其他指数。Pielou指数、Simpson指数、Shannon-Wiener指数与系统发育结构NRI （Net relatedness index）指数、NTI （Net nearest taxa index）指数存在显著正相关,表明群落优势度、均匀度与系统发育结构相关性较强。（3）土壤全磷含量是影响系统发育多样性和物种多样性的主要驱动因子,土壤含水量是影响Shannon-Wiener、Pielou、Simpson指数的最显著因子,海拔是影响群落系统发育结构的主要因素。海拔是影响系统发育结构变化的主要环境因子,而土壤因子是影响物种多样性与系统发育多样性的主要因素,进一步验证了物种多样性与系统发育多样性的高度相关,结果旨在揭示物种群落空间分布规律。     

Plastome-based phylogeny improves community phylogenetics of subtropical forests in China

Phylogenetic trees have been extensively used in community ecology. However, how the phylogeny construction affects ecological inferences is poorly understood. In this study, we constructed three different types of phylogenetic trees (a synthetic-tree generated using V.PhyloMaker, a barcode-tree generated using rbcL+matK+trnH-psbA, and a plastome-tree generated from plastid genomes) that represented an increasing level of phylogenetic resolution among 580 woody plant species from six forest dynamic plots in subtropical evergreen broadleaved forests of China. We then evaluated the performance of each phylogeny in estimations of community phylogenetic structure, turnover and phylogenetic signal in functional traits. As expected, the plastome-tree was most resolved and most supported for relationships among species. For local phylogenetic structure, the three trees showed consistent results with Faith's PD and MPD; however, only the synthetic-tree produced significant clustering patterns using MNTD for some plots. For phylogenetic turnover, contrasting results between the molecular trees and the synthetic-tree occurred only with nearest neighbor distance. The barcode-tree agreed more with the plastome-tree than the synthetic-tree for both phylogenetic structure and turnover. For functional traits, both the barcode-tree and plastome-tree detected phylogenetic signal in maximum height, but only the plastome-tree detected signal in leaf width. This is the first study that uses plastid genomes in large-scale community phylogenetics. Our results highlight the improvement of plastome-trees over barcode-trees and synthetic-trees for the analyses studied here. Our results also point to the possibility of type I and II errors in estimation of phylogenetic structure and turnover and detection of phylogenetic signal when using synthetic-trees.     

Phylogenetic dimension of tree communities reveals high conservation value of disturbed tropical rain forests

Aim

The conversion of old‐growth tropical forests into human‐modified landscapes threatens biodiversity worldwide, but its impact on the phylogenetic dimension of remaining communities is still poorly known. Negative and neutral responses of tree phylogenetic diversity to land use change have been reported at local and landscape scales. Here, we hypothesized that such variable responses to disturbance depend on the regional context, being stronger in more degraded rain forest regions with a longer history of land use.

Location

Six regions in Mexico and Brazil.

Methods

We used a large vegetation database (6,923 trees from 686 species) recorded in 98 50‐ha landscapes distributed across two Brazilian and four Mexican regions, which exhibit different degrees of disturbance. In each region, we assessed whether phylogenetic alpha and beta diversities were related to landscape‐scale forest loss, the percentage of shade‐intolerant species (a proxy of local disturbance) and/or the relatedness of decreasing (losers) and increasing (winners) taxa.

Results

Contrary to our expectations, the percentage of forest cover and shade‐intolerant species were weakly related to phylogenetic alpha and beta diversities in all but one region. Loser species were generally as dispersed across the phylogeny as winner species, allowing more degraded, deforested and species‐poorer forests to sustain relatively high levels of evolutionary (phylogenetic) diversity.

Main conclusion

Our findings support previous evidence indicating that traits related to high susceptibility to forest disturbances are convergent or have low phylogenetic signal. More importantly, they reveal that the evolutionary value of disturbed forests is (at least in a phylogenetic sense) much greater than previously thought.

     

A ‘fast-food approach’ to the standardization of quadratic diversity

Abstract

Intuitively, a community composed of ecologically dissimilar taxa is more diverse than a community composed of more similar taxa. However, since traditional diversity indices such as Shannon's entropy or Simpson's diversity are computed solely from the relative abundances of a given species assemblage, they cannot account for ecological differences between species. There have been recent developments regarding the use of quadratic entropy, a diversity index that incorporates both species relative abundances and a measure of the pairwise ecological differences between species. In this paper we firstly show that under some specific circumstances quadratic entropy can be additively decomposed into α- β- and γ-diversities, a property that renders it a desirable measure of diversity in the ecological practice. Next, we suggest a quick and simple method for obtaining a standardized version of quadratic entropy that may allow an easier interpretation of the resulting diversity values.     

生态学的多样性指数:功能与系统发育

生物多样性是生态学的核心问题。传统的多样性指数仅包含物种数和相对多度的信息,这类基于分类学的多样性指数并不能很好地帮助理解群落构建和生态系统功能。不同物种对群落构建和生态系统功能所起到的作用类型和贡献也不完全相同,且物种在生态过程中的作用和贡献往往与性状密切相关,因此功能多样性已经成为反映物种群落构建、干扰以及环境因素对群落影响的重要指标。同时,由于亲缘关系相近的物种往往具有相似的性状,系统发育多样性也可以作为功能多样性的一个替代。功能多样性和系统发育多样性各自具有优缺点,但二者均比分类多样性更能揭示群落和生态系统的构建、维持与功能。     

A taxonomic and phylogenetic perspective on plant community assembly along an elevational gradient in subtropical forests

亚热带森林植物群落沿海拔梯度的分类与系统发育研究 生物多样性沿海拔梯度的分布格局已受到广泛关注。然而,生物多样性格局沿海拔梯度的变异及其潜在机制尚不清楚。整合生物多样性的多维度信息为理解群落构建机制提供了新思路。本研究在我国东部亚热带森林沿海拔270–1470 m的梯度上设置了17个木本植物固定样地,分析了沿海拔梯度植物群落 构建的生态和进化驱动力。基于样地内物种出现(0–1数据)和多度信息,计算群落内被子植物的物种和系统发育alpha和beta多样性、系统发育结构等,并量化多样性指标与微气候和地形之间的关系。研究发现,不论多度加权与否,物种alpha多样性均沿海拔升高而增加,物种和系统发育的相似性随海拔距离的增加而呈衰减趋势。然而,多度加权与否会形成不同的系统发育alpha多样性格局。对于系统发育结构而言,沿海拔增加并无明显趋势。地形和微气候是多样性格局和系统发育结构的主要驱动力。与未考虑物种多度的多样性指标相比,多度加权的指标与坡度和胸高断面积相关性更高。这些结果表明,由局域物种多度介导的确定性过程对沿海拔梯度的植物群落构建具有一定影响。     

Are phylogenies derived from family‐level supertrees robust for studies on macroecological patterns along environmental gradients?

Ecologists frequently use a supertree method to generate phylogenies in ecological studies. However, the robustness of research results based on phylogenies generated with a supertree method has not been well evaluated. Here, we use the angiosperm tree flora of North America as a model system to test the robustness of phylogenies generated with a supertree method for studies on the relationship between phylogenetic properties and environment, by comparing the relationship between phylogenetic metrics and environmental variables derived from a phylogeny reconstructed with a supertree method to that derived from a phylogeny resolved at species level. North America was divided into equal area quadrats of 12 100 km². Nine indices of phylogenetic structure were calculated for angiosperm tree assemblages in each quadrat using two phylogenies resolved at different levels (one resolved at the family level and the other resolved at the species level). Scores of phylogenetic indices were related to two major climatic variables (temperature and precipitation) using correlation and regression analyses. Scores of phylogenetic indices resulting from the two phylogenies are perfectly or nearly perfectly correlated. On average, there is no difference in the variation explained by the two climatic variables between scores of phylogenetic indices derived from the two phylogenies. Our study suggests that a phylogeny derived from a well resolved family-level supertree as backbone with genera and species attached to the backbone as polytomies is robust for studies investigating the relationship between phylogenetic structure and environment in biological assemblages at a broad spatial scale.     

Environment drives high phylogenetic turnover among oceanic bacterial communities

Although environmental filtering has been observed to influence the biodiversity patterns of marine bacterial communities, it was restricted to the regional scale and to the species level, leaving the main drivers unknown at large biogeographic scales and higher taxonomic levels. Bacterial communities with different species compositions may nevertheless share phylogenetic lineages, and phylogenetic turnover (PT) among those communities may be surprisingly low along any biogeographic or environmental gradient. Here, we investigated the relative influence of environmental filtering and geographical distance on the PT between marine bacterial communities living more than 8000 km apart in contrasted abiotic conditions. PT was high between communities and was more structured by local environmental factors than by geographical distance, suggesting the predominance of a lineage filtering process. Strong phenotype-environment mismatches observed in the ocean may surpass high connectivity between marine microbial communities.     

Are Archaea inherently less diverse than Bacteria in the same environments?

Like Bacteria, Archaea occur in a wide variety of environments, only some of which can be considered 'extreme'. We compare archaeal diversity, as represented by 173 16S rRNA gene libraries described in published reports, to bacterial diversity in 79 libraries from the same source environments. An objective assessment indicated that 114 archaeal libraries and 45 bacterial libraries were large enough to yield stable estimates of total phylotype richness. Archaeal libraries were seldom as large or diverse as bacterial libraries from the same environments. However, a relatively larger proportion of libraries were large enough to effectively capture rare as well as dominant phylotypes in archaeal communities. In contrast to bacterial libraries, the number of phylotypes did not correlate with library size; thus, 'larger' may not necessarily be 'better' for determining diversity in archaeal libraries. Differences in diversity suggest possible differences in ecological roles of Archaea and Bacteria; however, information is lacking on relative abundances and metabolic activities within the sampled communities, as well as the possible existence of microhabitats. The significance of phylogenetic diversity as opposed to functional diversity remains unclear, and should be a high priority for continuing research.     

Museums and cradles of diversity are geographically coincident for narrowly distributed Neotropical snakes

Factors driving the spatial configuration of centres of endemism have long been a topic of broad interest and debate. Due to different eco-evolutionary processes, these highly biodiverse areas may harbour different amounts of ancient and recently diverged organisms (paleo- and neo-endemism, respectively). Patterns of endemism still need to be measured at distinct phylogenetic levels for most clades and, consequently, little is known about the distribution, the age and the causes of such patterns. Here we tested for the presence of centres with high phylogenetic endemism (PE) in the highly diverse Neotropical snakes, testing the age of these patterns (paleo- or neo-endemism), and the presence of PE centres with distinct phylogenetic composition. We then tested whether PE is predicted by topography, by climate (seasonality, stability, buffering and relictualness), or biome size. We found that most areas of high PE for Neotropical snakes present a combination of both ancient and recently diverged diversity, which is distributed mostly in the Caribbean region, Central America, the Andes, the Atlantic Forest and on scattered highlands in central Brazil. Turnover of lineages is higher across Central America, resulting in more phylogenetically distinct PE centres compared to South America, which presents a more phylogenetically uniform snake fauna. Finally, we found that elevational range (topographic roughness) is the main predictor of PE, especially for paleo-endemism, whereas low paleo-endemism levels coincide with areas of high climatic seasonality. Our study highlights the importance of mountain systems to both ancient and recent narrowly distributed diversity. Mountains are both museums and cradles of snake diversity in the Neotropics, which has important implications for conservation in this region.     

Cultural phylogeography of the Bantu Languages of sub-Saharan Africa

There is disagreement about the routes taken by populations speaking Bantu languages as they expanded to cover much of sub-Saharan Africa. Here, we build phylogenetic trees of Bantu languages and map them onto geographical space in order to assess the likely pathway of expansion and test between dispersal scenarios. The results clearly support a scenario in which groups first moved south through the rainforest from a homeland somewhere near the Nigeria–Cameroon border. Emerging on the south side of the rainforest, one branch moved south and west. Another branch moved towards the Great Lakes, eventually giving rise to the monophyletic clade of East Bantu languages that inhabit East and Southeastern Africa. These phylogenies also reveal information about more general processes involved in the diversification of human populations into distinct ethnolinguistic groups. Our study reveals that Bantu languages show a latitudinal gradient in covering greater areas with increasing distance from the equator. Analyses suggest that this pattern reflects a true ecological relationship rather than merely being an artefact of shared history. The study shows how a phylogeographic approach can address questions relating to the specific histories of certain groups, as well as general cultural evolutionary processes.     

The building of a biodiversity hotspot across a land-bridge in the Mediterranean

Many of the macroevolutionary processes that have shaped present-day phylogenetic patterns were caused by geological events such as plate tectonics and temporary land-bridges. The study of spatial patterns of phylogenetic diversity can provide insights into these past events. Here we focus on a western Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot located in the southern Iberian Peninsula and northwest Africa, two regions that are separated by the Strait of Gibraltar. We explore the spatial structure of the phylogenetic relationships within and across large-scale plant assemblages. Significant turnover in terminal lineages tends to occur between landmasses, whereas turnover in deep lineages tends to occur within landmasses. Plant assemblages in the western ecoregions of this hotspot tend to be phylogenetically overdispersed but are phylogenetically clustered on its eastern margins. We discuss our results in the light of potential scenarios of niche evolution (or conservatism) and lineage diversification. The significant turnover between landmasses suggests a common scenario of allopatric speciation that could have been facilitated by the intermittent joining of the two continents. This may have constituted an important stimulus for diversification and the emergence of this western Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot.