The role of diversification in causing the correlates of dioecy

Dioecy is reported to be correlated with a number of ecological traits, including tropical distribution, woody growth form, plain flowers, and fleshy fruits. Previous analyses have concentrated on determining whether dioecy is more likely to evolve in lineages possessing these traits, rather than considering the speciation and extinction rates of dioecious lineages with certain combinations of traits. To address the association between species richness in dioecious lineages as a function of the ecological traits, we compared the evolutionary success (i.e., relative species richness) of dioecious focal lineages with that of their nondioecious sister groups. This test was repeated for the evolutionary success of randomly chosen nondioecious lineages (control lineages) compared with their nondioecious sister groups. If the possession of certain ecological traits enhances the evolutionary success of dioecious lineages, we predict an association between the presence of these traits and relative species richness in the former, but not latter, set of sister-group comparisons. Dioecious focal lineages with a higher number of these traits experienced higher evolutionary success in sister-group comparisons, whereas no trend was found for the control focal lineages. The increase in evolutionary success was especially true for dioecious focal lineages that had a tropical distribution or fleshy fruit. We discuss how these results provide strong support for differential evolutionary success theories for the correlations between dioecy and the ecological traits considered.     

Sexual systems in gymnosperms: A review

The aim of this study was to update figures for the presence of dioecy among the gymnosperms and investigate its correlation with climate, growth form, pollination and seed dispersal syndromes, and risk of extinction. Dioecy was found in almost 65% of contemporary gymnosperm species, a higher percentage than previous estimates. It dominates in 8 of the 12 families. As in angiosperms, dioecious gymnosperms are particularly common in climbers and are more commonly found in tropical climates. Analysis of the degree of threat using IUCN red list categories showed that the proportion of threatened species is higher in dioecious than in monoecious species only in temperate climate. The high sensitivity of dioecious species to environmental changes associated with human activity in temperate climate may explain this phenomenon. The monophyly of extant gymnosperms and the relatively small number of species (about 1000) create the possibility of treating them as a model group in investigating the evolution of sexual systems.     

Data uncertainty and the selectivity of extinction risk in freshwater invertebrates

Aim

To investigate the impact of different treatments of the IUCN Data Deficient (DD) category on taxonomic and geographical patterns of extinction risk in crayfish, freshwater crabs and dragonflies.

Location

Global.

Methods

We used contingency tables to evaluate taxonomic and geographical selectivity of data deficiency and extinction risk for three invertebrate taxonomic groups (crayfish, dragonflies and damselflies, and freshwater crabs) based on their IUCN Red List status. We investigated differences in patterns of data deficiency and extinction risk among taxonomic families, geographical realms and taxonomic families within geographical realms for each of the three groups. At each level, we evaluated the impact of uncertainty conferred by the conservation status of DD species on extinction risk patterns exhibited by that group. We evaluated three scenarios: excluding DD species, treating all DD species as non‐threatened and treating all DD species as threatened.

Results

At the global scale, DD species were taxonomically non‐randomly distributed in freshwater crabs and dragonflies, and geographically non‐randomly distributed in all three taxonomic groups. Although the presence of under‐ or over‐threatened families and biogeographical realms was generally unchanging across scenarios, the strength of taxonomic and geographical selectivity of extinction risk varied. There was little consistent evidence for taxonomic selectivity of extinction risk at sub‐global scales in freshwater crabs and dragonflies, either among biogeographical realms or among scenarios.

Main conclusions

Global patterns of taxonomic selectivity and geographical selectivity were generally consistent with one another and robust to different treatments of DD species. However, sub‐global scale conservation prioritization from these types of data sets will require increased investment to make accurate decisions. Given the current levels of data uncertainty, the relative importance of biological characteristics and threatening processes in driving extinctions in freshwater invertebrates cannot be easily determined. We recommend that DD species should be given high research priority to determine their true status.     

全球变化情景下的中国木本植物受威胁物种名录

生物多样性正面临快速丧失的风险, 气候和土地利用变化已成为生物多样性的主要威胁之一。受威胁物种名录是区域和全球生物多样性保护的重要基础数据, 也是保护区规划的基础。作为一个生物多样性大国, 中国已开展了高等植物受威胁状况的系统性评估, 建立了受威胁植物名录, 为植物多样性保护规划提供了支撑。但由于数据和方法限制, 现有受威胁植物名录制定时未定量考虑全球变化对植物分布的潜在影响, 因而可能低估物种的受威胁等级及未来生物多样性的丧失风险。本研究基于高精度的木本植物分布数据和物种分布模型, 评估了未来气候和土地利用变化对木本植物分布的潜在影响。基于每个物种适宜分布区大小的变化, 并依据IUCN红色名录评估指标A3c的阈值标准, 更新了木本植物的受威胁等级, 补充了未来中国潜在受威胁木本植物名录。结果显示: 综合不同的气候变化情景(RCP 2.6、RCP 6.0和RCP 8.5)和扩散情景(完全扩散、20 km/10年、不扩散), 约12.9%-40.5%的木本植物被评估为受威胁物种。该名录将为制定木本植物保护优先级、开展保护区规划、提升全球变化情景下的生物多样性保护成效提供基础数据, 也为其他类群制定全面的受威胁物种名录提供参考。     

Evolution of a climbing habit promotes diversification in flowering plants

Key innovations are traits that are associated with the particular evolutionary 'success' of some taxonomic groups. Climbing plants depend on the availability of physical support to reach the canopy and thereby prevent shading by neighbouring plants. The present article shows that the evolution of a climbing habit in flowering plants constitutes a key innovation. A literature survey identified 48 pairs of sister groups from 45 families of flowering plants for which information on phylogenetic relationships, growth habit and species richness was available. In 38 cases, the climbing taxa were more diverse than their non-climbing sister groups. This pattern was highly significant. The same result was found when separate analyses were carried out for herbaceous and woody climbing plants, which differ in their constraints for successfully reaching a support.     

Dioecy,hermaphrodites and pathogen load in plants

Sex‐specific investment in pathogen resistance and immunity has been widely reported in animals and to a much lesser degree in plants. Here, we investigated the incidence of fungal pathogens in dioecious versus hermaphroditic plant species. We found that direct studies on differences between males and females in disease resistance or pathogen incidence were rare or non‐existent in plants, but if we made the prediction that if such differences exist (e.g. if males are less resistant than females), dioecious species should have a higher variation in pathogen diversity than hermaphrodites. Comparative studies on paired dioecious and hermaphrodite species from multiple plant families showed that hermaphrodites had a higher average pathogen load than dioecious species, consistent with the idea that higher outcrossing is beneficial to resistance to a greater diversity of pathogens. There was however no support for dioecious species also having a greater variance in pathogen diversity. Our results are consistent with dioecy providing a benefit in terms of pathogen resistance, but the data were insufficient to resolve if the male and female plants showed sex‐specific investment in resistance.     

Loss of pathogens in threatened plant species

Global declines in biodiversity create an urgent need to address the impact of infectious disease in the small and fragmented populations that characterize threatened species. However, the paucity of empirical data provides little ability to predict whether disease generally accelerates threatened species towards extinction or becomes less important as populations decline. This study tests whether plant species threatened with extinction exhibit lower disease frequencies and lower overall parasite species richness while also experimentally testing for the effect of physiological disease resistance. Herbarium surveys of the genus Silene revealed that anther‐smut disease was significantly less frequent in threatened species than non‐threatened species, and this effect was not constrained by the host phylogeny or by physiological resistance. Moreover, analysis across a much broader range of plants (using US Federal designations) revealed that species with endangered status had significantly lower species richness of fungal pathogens than closely‐related, non‐endangered species. These results support the role of host ecology, rather than physiological resistance or phylogeny, in determining overall lower incidences and diversity of diseases in plant species threatened by extinction. Low disease incidence accompanied by susceptibility in threatened species may result from selection against costly resistance genes in the absence of disease.     

Estimating demographic models for the range dynamics of plant species

Aims To better understand how demographic processes shape the range dynamics of woody plants (in this case, Proteaceae), we introduce a likelihood framework for fitting process‐based models of range dynamics to spatial abundance data. Location The fire‐prone Fynbos biome (Cape Floristic Region, South Africa). Methods Our process‐based models have a spatially explicit demographic submodel (describing dispersal, reproduction, mortality and local extinction) as well as an observation submodel (describing imperfect detection of individuals), and are constrained by species‐specific predictions of habitat distribution models and process‐based models for seed dispersal by wind. Free model parameters were varied to find parameter sets with the highest likelihood. After testing this approach with simulated data, we applied it to eight Proteaceae species that differ in breeding system (monoecy versus dioecy) and adult fire survival. We assess the importance of Allee effects and negative density dependence for range dynamics, by using the Akaike information criterion to select between alternative models fitted for the same species. Results The best model for all dioecious study species included Allee effects, whereas this was true for only one of four monoecious species. As expected, sprouters (in which adults survive fire) were estimated to have lower rates of reproduction and catastrophic population extinction than related non‐sprouters. Overcompensatory population dynamics seem important for three of four non‐sprouters. We also found good quantitative agreement between independent data and most estimates of reproduction, carrying capacity and extinction probability. Main conclusions This study shows that process‐based models can quantitatively describe how large‐scale abundance distributions arise from the movement and interaction of individuals. It stresses links between the life history, demography and range dynamics of Proteaceae: dioecious species seem more susceptible to Allee effects which reduce migration ability and increase local extinction risk, and sprouters seem to have high persistence of established populations, but their low reproduction limits habitat colonization and migration.     

Ecological correlates of extinction risk in Chinese birds

China is one of the countries with the richest bird biodiversity in the world. Among the 1372 Chinese birds, 146 species are considered threatened and three species are regionally extinct according to the officially released China Biodiversity Red List in 2015. Here, we conducted the first extensive analysis to systematically investigate the patterns and processes of extinction and threat in Chinese birds. We addressed the following four questions. First, is extinction risk randomly distributed among avian families in Chinese birds? Second, which families contain more threatened species than would be expected by chance? Third, which species traits are important in determining the extinction risk in Chinese birds using a multivariate phylogenetic comparative approach? Finally, is the form of the relationship between traits additive or nonadditive (synergistic)? We found that the extinction risk of Chinese birds was not randomly distributed among taxonomic families. The families that contained significantly more threatened species than expected were the hornbills, cranes, pittas, pheasants and hawks and eagles. We obtained eleven species traits that are commonly hypothesized to influence extinction risk from the literature: body size, clutch size, trophic level, mobility, habitat specificity, geographical range size, nest type, nest site, flocking tendency, migrant status and hunting vulnerability. After phylogenetic correction, model selection based on Akaike's information criterion identified the synergistic interaction between body size and hunting vulnerability as the single best correlate of extinction risk in Chinese birds. Our results suggest that, in order to be effective, priority management efforts should be given both to certain extinction‐prone families, particularly the hornbills, pelicans, cranes, pittas, pheasants and hawks and eagles, and to bird species with large body size and high hunting vulnerability.     

Profiling a besieged flora: endemic and threatened plants of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa

The Cape Peninsula (area: 471 km²), situated at the south-western extremity of the Cape Floristic Region, has exceptionally high plant species richness (2285 species and infraspecific taxa) and numbers of endemic (90; 88 species and two infraspecific) and threatened (141; 138 species and three infraspecific) taxa (termed species from here on). This biodiversity is threatened by urban development and the spread of invasive alien plants. Peninsula endemics are concentrated in a few, predominantly species-rich families and these correspond well with endemic-rich families in other areas of the Cape Floristic Region. A high level of similarity exists between families with threatened and families with endemic species. A frequency analysis of the biological traits of both endemic and threatened species shows that low growing, ant-dispersed shrubs are over-represented in both groups. Endemics are most likely to be non-sprouters, but threatened plants do not have a specific post-fire regeneration strategy. Threatened species have higher frequencies of geophytes, sprouters and wind-dispersed species compared to endemic species. Numbers of endemic and threatened species are not randomly distributed with regard to occurrence in vegetation types and patterns are similar for both groups. The habitat and biological profiles of both endemic and threatened species suggest that they are highly vulnerable to extinction as a result of increasing rates of alien plant infestation, urbanization and inappropriate fire regimes.     

Life-history characters and phylogeny are correlated with extinction risk in the Australian angiosperms

Aim To determine whether life‐history characters that affect population persistence (e.g. habit and life span) and those that influence reproductive success (e.g. sexual system and fruit type) are non‐randomly correlated with extinction risk (i.e. threat category) in the Australian flora (c. 19,000 species, of which c. 14% is threatened). To identify patterns that present useful conservation directions. To understand patterns of extinction risk in the Australian flora at a broad scale. Location Continental Australia. Methods A country‐wide exploration of four life‐history characters in the Australian flora (n = 18,822 species) was undertaken using reference texts, expert opinion, herbarium records and field work. For each character and threat‐category combination, a G‐test (using a log‐linear model) was performed to test the null hypothesis that the two factors were independent in their effects on count. A generalized linear model (GLM) with a logit link and binomial error distribution was constructed with the proportion of taxa in each extinction risk category as the response variable and the habit, sex and fruit‐type characters as explanatory terms. In a separate approach, we investigated patterns across the threat categories of non‐endangered extant, endangered, and extinct using a multinomial model. We examined whether or not species‐poor genera were more likely to contain threatened or extinct species than species‐rich genera. A GLM with a binomial error distribution and logit link function was constructed to obtain a weighted regression on the proportion of species listed as extinct or endangered within a genus versus the log of the size of the genus. We also used a supertree analysis and character tracing to investigate the role of phylogeny on extinction risk. Results We found that the Australian flora is primarily composed of bisexual shrubs with dry‐dehiscent fruits. Dioecious breeding systems (separate female and male flowers on separate plants) in many floras are the predominant unisexual system, but in Australia there are unexpectedly high levels of monoecy (separate female and male flowers on the same plant). Within the extinct data set of 31 species we detected a significant departure from that expected for habit but not for life span, sexual system or fruit type. There are significantly fewer trees on the extinct list than expected. This may reflect the greater resilience of trees than of other growth habits to extinction processes as well as the observation time‐frame. Within the endangered data set of 450 species we found significant differences in the representation of the observed characters from that expected within sex systems and fruit types. We show that, depending on the life form, unisexual breeding systems can be significantly and positively associated with endangered species compared with non‐threatened species. For example, there are more monoecious species than expected by chance among the tree species listed as endangered but fewer among the herbaceous life forms. Threat category was found to be non‐randomly clustered in some clades. Main conclusions Life‐history characters in certain combinations are predictive of extinction risk. Phylogeny is also an important component of extinction risk. We suggest that specific life‐history characters could be used for conservation planning and as an early warning sign for detecting vulnerability in lists of species.     

Extinction risk of Chinese angiosperms varies between woody and herbaceous species

Aim

Understanding how species' traits and environmental contexts relate to extinction risk is a critical priority for ecology and conservation biology. This study aims to identify and explore factors related to extinction risk between herbaceous and woody angiosperms to facilitate more effective conservation and management strategies and understand the interactions between environmental threats and species' traits.

Location

China.

Taxon

Angiosperms.

Methods

We obtained a large dataset including five traits, six extrinsic variables, and 796,118 occurrence records for 14,888 Chinese angiosperms. We assessed the phylogenetic signal and used phylogenetic generalized least squares regressions to explore relationships between extinction risk, plant traits, and extrinsic variables in woody and herbaceous angiosperms. We also used phylogenetic path analysis to evaluate causal relationships among traits, climate variables, and extinction risk of different growth forms.

Results

The phylogenetic signal of extinction risk differed among woody and herbaceous species. Angiosperm extinction risk was mainly affected by growth form, altitude, mean annual temperature, normalized difference vegetation index, and precipitation change from 1901 to 2020. Woody species' extinction risk was strongly affected by height and precipitation, whereas extinction risk for herbaceous species was mainly affected by mean annual temperature rather than plant traits.

Main conclusions

Woody species were more likely to have higher extinction risks than herbaceous species under climate change and extinction threat levels varied with both plant traits and extrinsic variables. The relationships we uncovered may help identify and protect threatened plant species and the ecosystems that rely on them.     

When looks can kill: the evolution of sexually dimorphic floral display and the extinction of dioecious plants

Dioecious plants (with separate male and female individuals) more often have drab, inconspicuous flowers than related bisexual plants. Models indicate, however, that similar conditions favour the evolution of showy floral displays in dioecious and bisexual plants. One difference, however, is that dioecious plants may evolve floral displays that are sexually dimorphic. We show that males are more likely to evolve showy flowers than females in animal-pollinated plants, especially when pollinators are abundant. We demonstrate that this dimorphism places showy dioecious plants at a much higher risk of extinction during years of low pollinator abundance because pollinators may fail to visit female flowers. The higher extinction risk of showy dioecious plants provides an explanation for the fact that dioecious plants that do persist tend to have inconspicuous flowers and are more often wind pollinated. It may also help explain why dioecious plants are less species-rich than related bisexual plants.     

Angiosperm growth habit,dispersal and diversification reconsidered

Summary Previous studies have sought to elucidate the relationship between dispersal mode (biotic versus abiotic) and the taxonomic diversification of angiosperm families, but with ambiguous results. In this study, we propose the hypothesis that the combination of (1) the large seed size required of plants germinating in closed, light-poor environments and (2) the necessity to move disseminules away from the maternal plant in order to avoid intraspecific competition, predation and pathogens should favour biotically-dispersed relative to abiotically-dispersed woody arborescent angiosperms, resulting in higher diversification of the former. In this paper, we seek patterns of diversification that support this hypothesis. We examine the association between dispersal mode, growth habit and taxonomic richness of monocotyledon and dicotyledon families using (1) contingency table analyses to detect the effect of dispersal mode on the relative abundances and diversification of woody versus herbaceous taxa and (2) non-parametric analyses of variance to detect the statistical effect of dispersal mode on taxonomic diversification (mean number of species per genus, genera per family and species per family) in monocot and dicot families dominated by biotic or abiotic dispersal. We found a clear statistical effect of dispersal mode on diversification. Among families of woody dicots, dispersal by vertebrates is associated with significantly higher levels of species per genus, genera per family and species per family than is abiotic dispersal. The same pattern is observed among woody monocots, but is not significant at the 0.05 level. Among families of herbaceous monocots and dicots, the situation is reversed, with abiotically-dispersed families exhibiting higher levels of diversification than vertebrate-dispersed families. When woody and herbaceous families are pooled, there is no association between dispersal mode and diversification. These data coincide with evidence from the fossil record to suggest vertebrate dispersal has positively contributed to the diversification of woody angiosperms. We suggest that vertebrate dispersal may have promoted the diversity of extant taxa by reducing the probability of extinction over evolutionary time, rather than by elevating speciation rates. Our results suggest vertebrate dispersal has contributed to, but does not explainin toto, the diversity of living angiosperms.     

Nonrandom extinction leads to elevated loss of angiosperm evolutionary history

The phylogenetic clustering of extinction may jeopardize the existence of entire families and genera, which can result in elevated reductions of evolutionary history (EH), trait diversity, and ecosystem functioning. Analyses of globally threatened birds and mammals suggest current extinction threats will result in a much higher loss of EH than random extinction scenarios, while the analyses of the taxonomical distribution of regionally rare plants find the opposite pattern. The disproportionately high number of rare plant species within species-rich families potentially suggests that lower losses of plant EH will be sustained than expected under random extinction. We show that at a global scale, this is not the case. Species-poor (especially monotypic) angiosperm families are more often at risk of extinction than expected. Because these high-risk species-poor families are as evolutionarily distinct as other families, the expected family-level EH plausibly lost in the next 100 years exceeds that predicted from random extinction by up to approximately 1165 million years.     

Invasive plants in Minnesota are “joining the locals”: A trait‐based analysis

Questions

Predicting which newly arrived species will establish and become invasive is a problem that has long vexed researchers. In a study of cold temperate oak forest stands, we examined two contrasting hypotheses regarding plant functional traits to explain the success of certain non‐native species. Under the “join the locals” hypothesis, successful invaders are expected to share traits with resident species because they employ successful growth strategies under light‐limited understorey conditions. Instead, under the “try harder” hypothesis, successful invaders are expected to have traits different from native species in order to take advantage of unused niche space.

Location

Minnesota, USA.

Methods

We examined these two theories using 109 native and 11 non‐native plants in 68 oak forest stands. We focused on traits related to plant establishment and growth, including specific leaf area (SLA), leaf carbon‐to‐nitrogen ratio (C:N), wood density, plant maximum height, mycorrhizal type, seed mass and growth form. We compared traits of native and non‐native species using ordinations in multidimensional trait space and compared community‐weighted mean (CWM) trait values across sites.

Results

We found few differences between trait spaces occupied by native and non‐native species. Non‐native species occupied smaller areas of trait space than natives, yet were within that of the native species, indicating similar growth strategies. We observed a higher proportion of non‐native species in sites with higher native woody species CWM SLA and lower CWM C:N. Higher woody CWM SLA was observed in sites with higher soil pH, while lower CWM C:N was found in sites with higher light levels.

Conclusions

Non‐native plants in this system have functional traits similar to natives and are therefore “joining the locals.” However, non‐native plants may possess traits toward the acquisitive end of the native plant trait range, as evidenced by higher non‐native plant abundance in high‐resource environments.

     

Human overexploitation and extinction risk correlates of Chinese snakes

China is one of the countries with the richest snake biodiversity in the world. However, about one‐third of all 236 species are now considered threatened, partially due to the intense human overexploitation. Despite that, to date, no study has explicitly investigated the patterns and processes of extinction and threats of Chinese snakes, or between human exploited and unexploited snake subgroups. We addressed the following three questions: 1) which snake families proportionally include more human exploited species than expected by chance? 2) Which species traits and extrinsic factors are correlated with their extinction risk? 3) Are there differences between human exploited and unexploited species in terms of patterns and processes of extinction? We found that the family Elapidae contained a significantly higher number of exploited species. Considering eight species traits and four extrinsic factors, we performed phylogenetic correlation tests, finding that small geographic range size, large body length, oviparous reproduction, diurnal activity and high human exploitation were important in determining the extinction risk of all Chinese snakes. Moreover, human exploited snakes had a higher percentage of threatened species and large‐bodied species than unexploited snakes. Extinction risk of human exploited species was related to body length, reproduction mode and activity period, whereas that of human unexploited species were associated with geographic range size, microhabitat and annual temperature. Overall, we highlight the phylogenetic non‐random exploitation of snakes, and different factors underlying species response to human overexploitation. We suggest that conservation priority should be given to exploitation‐prone families and species with extinction‐prone traits, as identified in this study. Moreover, human exploited and unexploited species should be managed considering different strategies since their extinction risk was associated with different ecological traits. Conservation actions should also focus on preventing human threats, such as human overexploitation and habitat loss, for the effective preservation of Chinese snakes.     

Variation of butterfly diet breadth in relation to host-plant predictability: results from two faunas

Host‐plant data for North American and Australian butterflies were used to test the hypothesis that larval diet breadth increases with decreasing resource predictability (where the latter was estimated by host‐plant growth‐form/duration). For each region in turn we compared the diet breadths of butterflies which utilise herbaceous host‐plants with those of species having woody hosts. For North America alone we also compared the diet breadths of species having annual hosts with those utilising perennial hosts, and the diets of species having herbaceous‐annual hosts with those using woody‐perennial hosts. Studies of diet breadth may be biased by the host taxonomic level which contributes most to the diet index used. For example, the results of analyses which employ indices based on numbers of families of hosts utilised may differ from those using indices based on counts of host species or genera. To investigate this potential problem we performed cross‐species analyses where diet breadth was defined in turn as the number of host species, genera, or families eaten. We found that using different taxonomic levels did give inconsistent results. To avoid this we employed phylogenetic diet breadth indices in comparative analyses of Independent Contrasts. The former incorporate information from the whole of the host‐plant phylogeny, whilst the comparative method eliminates any confounding effects of butterfly phylogeny. The results indicated that there is a phylogenetic component to butterfly diet breadth. They also largely differed from those of the cross‐species investigations, although there were similarities (i.e. results differed between regions and varied according to whether the whole fauna or just endemics were investigated). Our results suggested that in both regions, non‐endemics which feed on herbaceous plants have wider diet breadths than non‐endemics which utilise woody hosts. However, we found no consistent evidence that the diet breadths of endemics increase with decreasing resource predictability (as estimated here).     

Spatial patterns of woody plant and bird diversity: functional relationships or environmental effects?

Aim To understand cross‐taxon spatial congruence patterns of bird and woody plant species richness. In particular, to test the relative roles of functional relationships between birds and woody plants, and the direct and indirect environmental effects on broad‐scale species richness of both groups. Location Kenya. Methods Based on comprehensive range maps of all birds and woody plants (native species > 2.5 m in height) in Kenya, we mapped species richness of both groups. We distinguished species richness of four different avian frugivore guilds (obligate, partial, opportunistic and non‐frugivores) and fleshy‐fruited and non‐fleshy‐fruited woody plants. We used structural equation modelling and spatial regressions to test for effects of functional relationships (resource–consumer interactions and vegetation structural complexity) and environment (climate and habitat heterogeneity) on the richness patterns. Results Path analyses suggested that bird and woody plant species richness are linked via functional relationships, probably driven by vegetation structural complexity rather than trophic interactions. Bird species richness was determined in our models by both environmental variables and the functional relationships with woody plants. Direct environmental effects on woody plant richness differed from those on bird richness, and different avian consumer guilds showed distinct responses to climatic factors when woody plant species richness was included in path models. Main conclusions Our results imply that bird and woody plant diversity are linked at this scale via vegetation structural complexity, and that environmental factors differ in their direct effects on plants and avian trophic guilds. We conclude that climatic factors influence broad‐scale tropical bird species richness in large part indirectly, via effects on plants, rather than only directly as often assumed. This could have important implications for future predictions of animal species richness in response to climate change.     

Lessons from Red Data Books: Plant Vulnerability Increases with Floral Complexity

The architectural complexity of flower structures (hereafter referred to as floral complexity) may be linked to pollination by specialized pollinators that can increase the probability of successful seed set. As plant—pollinator systems become fragile, a loss of such specialized pollinators could presumably result in an increased likelihood of pollination failure. This is an issue likely to be particularly evident in plants that are currently rare. Using a novel index describing floral complexity we explored whether this aspect of the structure of flowers could be used to predict vulnerability of plant species to extinction. To do this we defined plant vulnerability using the Red Data Book of Rare and Threatened Plants of Greece, a Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot. We also tested whether other intrinsic (e.g. life form, asexual reproduction) or extrinsic (e.g. habitat, altitude, range-restrictedness) factors could affect plant vulnerability. We found that plants with high floral complexity scores were significantly more likely to be vulnerable to extinction. Among all the floral complexity components only floral symmetry was found to have a significant effect, with radial-flower plants appearing to be less vulnerable. Life form was also a predictor of vulnerability, with woody perennial plants having significantly lower risk of extinction. Among the extrinsic factors, both habitat and maximum range were significantly associated with plant vulnerability (coastal plants and narrow-ranged plants are more likely to face higher risk). Although extrinsic and in particular anthropogenic factors determine plant extinction risk, intrinsic traits can indicate a plant’s proneness to vulnerability. This raises the potential threat of declining global pollinator diversity interacting with floral complexity to increase the vulnerability of individual plant species. There is potential scope for using plant—pollinator specializations to identify plant species particularly at risk and so target conservation efforts towards them.