Abstract Detail

Biogeography

Mishler, Brent D. [1], Thornhill, Andrew [2], Kling, Matthew [3], Freyman, William A. [4], Ackerly, David [5], Baldwin, Bruce G. [6].

Patterns of beta-diversity in the California vascular flora, comparing species-based and phylogenetic turnover measures.

The vascular flora of California is one of the most thoroughly studied in the world, yet there is much to be learned about how plant diversity is apportioned on the landscape. Understanding patterns of beta-diversity (i.e., differences among local sites) is important for a variety of purposes including bioregion definition, ecological studies of causes for beta-diversity, and complementarity analyses for applied conservation studies. The latter is of critical importance for California, given the need to prioritize conservation efforts in the face of rapid habitat loss and human-induced climate change. Many previous studies of spatial turnover in California have attempted to distinguish biogeographic or floristic regions. As part of the ongoing California Plant Phylodiversity Project, we revisited the issue of bioregionalization using four different measures of beta-diversity (or turnover) and the Biodiverse software package. Two of these measures are widely established in the literature: species turnover (ST) and phylogenetic turnover (PT), which we measured using the Sorenson and Phylo-Sorenson indices, respectively. The other two measures are recently published (Laffan, et. al., 2016, Methods in Ecology and Evolution), and are range-weighted variants of the preceding: range-weighted species turnover (RWST) and range-weighted phylogenetic turnover (RWPT). The latter two measures weight narrowly distributed species or lineages when determining similarity, thus are particularly good at locating boundaries of centers of endemism. We used a large spatial data set comprised of specimen-based distributional data from the Consortium of California Herbaria and other collection databases, at a scale of 15 km grid cells spanning the state of California, for the full vascular flora (there were 1.38 million geo-referenced records in all). Species turnover was examined using all 5255 species-level taxa treated in the Jepson eFlora. Phylogenetic turnover was examined using 1083 OTUs (i.e., terminal clades representing genera or monophyletic parts of genera) comprising a maximum likelihood phylogeny of California plants built using nine genes, beginning with data from Genbank and adding 1182 new gene sequences targeted to fill in data gaps. We compare and contrast patterns discovered by the four measures, examine where major floristic breaks occur, and compare these with previous bioregionalizations of the flora.

Related Links:
California Plant Phylodiversity Project

1 - University Of California, Berkeley, University and Jepson Herbaria, 1001 Valley Life Sciences Building, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2464, USA
2 - University of California, Berkeley, University and Jepson Herbaria, 1001 Valley Life Sciences Building # 2465, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2465, USA
3 - University of California, Berkeley, Integrative Biology, 1001 Valley Life Sciences Building, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2465, USA
4 - University of California Berkeley, Jepson Herbarium and Department of Integrative Biology, 1001 Valley Life Sciences Bldg. #2465, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2465, USA
5 - University of California Berkeley, Integrative Biology, Berkeley, CA, 94720-3140, USA
6 - University Of California Berkeley, JEPSON HERB & DEPT INTEGR BIOL, 1001 Valley Life Sciences Building, MC 2465, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2465, USA

Keywords:
California flora
Spatial phylogenetics
Biodiverse software
beta-diversity
bioregions.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 30, Biogeography I
Location: 203/Savannah International Trade and Convention Center
Date: Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016
Time: 4:30 PM
Number: 30012
Abstract ID:373
Candidate for Awards:None