Testing Seven Hypotheses to Determine What Explains the Current Planthopper (Fulgoridae) Geographical and Species Richness Patterns in China

Abstract

Although many hypotheses have been proposed to understand the mechanisms underlying large-scale richness patterns, the environmental determinants are still poorly understood, particularly in insects. Here, we tested the relative contributions of seven hypotheses previously proposed to explain planthopper richness patterns in China. The richness patterns were visualized at a 1° × 1° grid size, using 14,722 distribution records for 1335 planthoppers. We used ordinary least squares and spatial error simultaneous autoregressive models to examine the relationships between richness and single environmental variables and employed model averaging to assess the environmental variable relative roles. Species richness was unevenly distributed, with high species numbers occurring in the central and southern mountainous areas. The mean annual temperature change since the Last Glacial Maximum was the most important factor for richness patterns, followed by mean annual temperature and net primary productivity. Therefore, historical climate stability, ambient energy, and productivity hypotheses were supported strongly, but orogenic processes and geological isolation may also play a vital role.

Distribution patterns of Chinese Cixiidae (Hemiptera, Fulgoroidea), highlight their high endemic diversity

“…The highest endemism is found in Taiwan (69.57%), followed by the Southwest China (39.53%), North China (34.48%) and Central China (33.33%) regions. These figures are consistent with the species richness and endemism patterns observed in other Hemiptera groups, such as aphids ( Huang et al 2008 , Gao et al 2018 ), leafhoppers ( Yuan et al 2014 ), or more specifically for planthoppers ( Zhao et al 2020a , Zhao et al 2020b ). For the patterns of distribution, the South China-Taiwan pattern (6.00%), the Central-South China-Taiwan one (4.40%) and the South-Western-South China-Taiwan one (2.40%) are the richer in term of species.…”

Assessing the Diversity and Distribution Pattern of the Speciose Genus Lycocerus (Coleoptera: Cantharidae) by the Global-Scale Data

“…The number of species in each grid was calculated and ranked, shown with different colors on the map. The inventory completeness of Lycocerus under the studied region was assessed using the species accumulation curve from the incidence-based bootstrap estimators (Zhao et al, 2020). Based on the statistical summary of the species in each 1 • grid cell, a presence (1) or absence (0) matrix for each species in each 1 • grid cell was constructed and was generated using EstimateS 9.1 with default values (Colwell, 2013).…”

“…Species richness is perhaps the simplest and most frequently used measure of biological diversity, and defined as the number of species per unit area (Huang et al, 2008;Gao et al, 2018). A vast amount of ecological research has been undertaken using species richness as a measure to understand what affects, and what is affected by, biodiversity (Huang et al, 2006;Gao et al, 2018;Zhao et al, 2020;Li et al, 2021). It provides a useful means through which to examine how fundamental ecological processes affect local communities (Li et al, 2019(Li et al, , 2021.…”

Endemism Patterns of Planthoppers (Fulgoroidea) in China

“…The inventory completeness for the study region was accessed using the species accumulation curve from the incidence-based bootstrap estimators (Zhao et al, 2020b). The presence (1) or absence (0) matrix for each endemic species in each 1 • grid (∼100 × 100 km) was constructed and was analyzed using EstimateS 9.1 with 100 randomizations (Colwell, 2013).…”

“…China is one of the countries that is the richest in planthoppers, with over 1,300 described species. Unfortunately, although previous studies have investigated species richness patterns in planthoppers (Zhao et al, 2020b), the understanding of patterns of endemism in China remains in its infancy. Thus, to fully understand endemism patterns of Chinese planthoppers, there is a need to compile distributional data for all endemic planthoppers species.…”