Abstract
Despite the exceptional species richness and endemism, the environmental drivers of plant diversity along old tropical mountains remain under-explored. The respective importance of vegetation types, elevation, slope, and soil to drive diversity across life-forms is poorly addressed. Here, we tested whether environmental variables drove local and regional plant diversity along an old tropical mountain according to the three main life-forms: graminoids, herbaceous and woody species. We sampled all Angiosperm species on 180 plots across five elevations, at the tropical old-mountain region of Serra do Cipó, South-eastern Brazil. We assessed soil, slope, and vegetation types, and calculated richness and beta-diversity, applying generalized least square models, linear mixed-models and partial Mantel tests to test for relationships. Richness of graminoids and herbaceous species increased with greater elevation and more nutrient-impoverished soils, while woody richness showed the inverse pattern. Beta-diversity was primarily driven by species turnover, correlated with elevation and soil and higher in less dominant vegetation types, with unique species. Despite the limited elevational range in these old mountains, it still played an important role in filtering woody species, while fostering graminoid and herbaceous species. Conservation and restoration actions need to foster the high regional diversity supported by the old mountain heterogeneous landscape and the diversity of life-forms, especially the dominant and highly diverse grassy component.
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Data availability: Data is available at Zenodo, upon https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6994853. The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) for financial support through the grants: #2009/54208-6, Fapesp-Microsoft Research Institute #2013/50155-0, Fapesp-Vale #2010/51307-0, #2021/10639-5 to LPCM and through fellowships FAPESP #2015/10754-8 to MGGC and #2019/09248-1 to ASS; We also thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior–(CAPES) for scholarships granted to MGGC (Process #88887.583309/2020-00), PPL (#88887.583146/2020-00), and JSS (CAPES Finance Code 001). We thank the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for the grants: CNPq-PVE #400717/2013-1 and PDJ #150404/2016-6 to SLS, for the productivity fellowship and grant #311820/2018-2, #306563/2022-3 to LPCM. We also thank ICMBio for granting the permits to work at Serra do Cipó National Park (PNSC) and its buffer zone. We thank the Reserva Vellozia, Pousada Pouso do Elefante, and Cedro Company for allowing access to private areas, and the PELD-CRSC for the infrastructure and support.
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PPL and LPCM conceptualized the study, LPCM provided supervision and acquired funding, MGCC, ASS, SLS and JSM collected the data, PPL and VAK provided formal analysis and figures, all authors wrote the original draft and revisions of the manuscript and PPL edited the final manuscript.
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Loiola, P.P., Morellato, L.P.C., Camargo, M.G.G. et al. Shared-role of vegetation types, elevation and soil affecting plant diversity in an old-tropical mountain hotspot. J. Mt. Sci. 20, 1842–1853 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-022-7838-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-022-7838-z