Climate‐driven elevational variation in range sizes of vascular plants in the central Himalayas: A supporting case for Rapoport's rule

Liang, Jiankun; Hu, Huijian; Ding, Zhifeng; Lie, Ganwen; Singh, Paras B.; Zhang, Zhixiang; Ji, Shengnan

doi:10.1002/ece3.7744

Cited by 7 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Specifically, the positive effect of climate variability was stronger for species in warmer regions (e.g., lower elevations) than for species in colder regions (e.g., higher elevations). This finding is consistent with previous studies that found that both mean climatic conditions and climate variability are important drivers of species’ range sizes in different taxa (e.g., (Luo et al ., 2011; Chan et al ., 2016; Liang et al ., 2021). Although studies in terrestrial vertebrates have considered the interaction between average environmental conditions and climate variability (Chan et al ., 2016), to our knowledge our study is the first one on woody plants to include these effects when testing the ECVH.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although studies in terrestrial vertebrates have considered the interaction between average environmental conditions and climate variability (Chan et al ., 2016), to our knowledge our study is the first one on woody plants to include these effects when testing the ECVH. For example, Liang et al (2021) considered mean environmental variables besides thermal variability in their study of plant elevational ranges. They found that both mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation had a significant relationship with plant elevational ranges; they did not, however, consider interactions among these and climate variability in their analyses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although we argue that the most direct way to test predictions of the ECVH is to study the response of individual species to different levels of climate variability, most studies use the average range size of co-occurring species as response variable (e.g., Mumladze et al 2017; Liang et al 2021; Macek et al 2021). These studies average the range sizes of all species occurring at a given site or elevational band (i.e., the “Steven’s method”) or average the range size of species whose distributional middle point falls within a given elevational band (i.e., the “midpoint method”).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Liang et al (2021) considered mean environmental variables besides thermal variability in their study of plant elevational ranges. They found that both mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation had a significant relationship with plant elevational ranges; they did not, however, consider interactions among these and climate variability in their analyses.…”

Section: Thermal Variability and Mean Temperature Interact To Determi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies testing predictions from the ECVH in vascular plants include only a few examples on the sub-tropical floras of the Himalayas (e.g., Liang et al ., 2021; Macek et al ., 2021) and the temperate Caucasus mountains (Mumladze et al ., 2017), as well as studies focusing on smaller sets of temperate plants that extend ECVH predictions to other species characteristics (e.g., trait plasticity; Molina-Montenegro & Naya, 2012; Maccagni & Willi, 2022). To our knowledge the only study that has directly tested the climate variability hypothesis on Neotropical plants has focused only on alpine communities in the Andes (>3000 m; Cuesta et al ., 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Elevational Range Sizes of Woody plants Increase with Climate Variability in the Tropical Andes

Montaño‐Centellas

Fuentes

Cayola

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Aim: The climate variability hypothesis proposes that species subjected to wide variation in climatic conditions will evolve wider niches, resulting in larger distributions. We test this hypothesis in tropical plants across a broad elevational gradient; specifically, we use a species-level approach to evaluate whether elevational range sizes are explained by the levels of thermal variability experienced by species. Location: Central Andes. Time period: Present day. Major taxa studied: Woody plants. Methods: Combining data from 479 forest plots, we determined the elevational distributions of nearly 2300 species along an elevational gradient (~209-3800 m). For each species, we calculated the maximum annual variation in temperature experienced across its elevational distribution. We used phylogenetic generalized least square models to evaluate the effect of thermal variability on range size. Our models included additional covariates that might affect range size: body size, local abundance, mean temperature and total precipitation. We also considered interactions between thermal variability and mean temperature or precipitation. To account for geometric constraints, we repeated our analyses with a standardized measure of range size, calculated by comparing observed range sizes with values obtained from a null model. Results: Our results supported the main prediction of the climate variability hypothesis. Thermal variability had a strong positive effect on the range size, with species exposed to higher thermal variability having broader elevational distributions. Body size and local abundance also had positive, yet weak effects, on elevational range size. Furthermore, there was a strong positive interaction between thermal variability and mean annual temperature. Main conclusions: Thermal variability had an overriding importance in driving elevational range sizes of woody plants in the Central Andes. Moreover, the relationship between thermal variability and range size might be even stronger in warmer regions, underlining the potential vulnerability of tropical montane floras to the effects of global warming.

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