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Richness and Composition of Vascular Plants and Cryptogams along a High Elevational Gradient on Buddha Mountain, Central Tibet

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Abstract

We explored patterns of plant species richness and composition along an elevational gradient (4,985–5,685 m a.s.l.) on Buddha Mountain, 100 km northwest of Lhasa, Tibet. We recorded the presence of plants and lichens in 1-m2 quadrats separated by 25-m elevational intervals (174 quadrats in 29 elevational bands) along a vertical transect with a SE aspect. We recorded 143 total species, including 107 angiosperms, 2 gymnosperms, 27 lichens, and 7 mosses. We measured stone cover in each quadrat, and soil pH, C, N and C/N ratio from two randomly located samples collected from 10-cm depth within each band. C, N and C/N decreased with elevation, stoniness increased and soil pH did not change with altitude. We employed detrended correspondence analysis (DCA), canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) and generalized linear models (GLMs) to assess the relationships of species richness and species composition to the environment. The first two axes of the CCA biplot explained 87.7% of total variation in the species-environment relationship, and 27.7% of total variance of species data. The first CCA axis is associated with elevation, while the second axis is related to soil pH and stone cover. We also compared patterns in species richness against expectations from species pools interpolated from the literature. Total species richness was relatively constant between 4,985 and 5,400 m a.s.l. and declined continuously above 5,400 m a.s.l. Similar declining patterns were observed for forbs and graminoids. Cushion plants and lichens abundance exhibited a unimodal relationship with altitude while shrubs declined monotonically. Except for lichens, models derived from our observations and the literature were quite similar in shape. The proportion of the species pool represented in each elevational band increased as a function of elevation for non-vascular plants, but decreased markedly for vascular plants. Thus, vascular plants are more likely to be constrained by dispersal at higher elevations, resulting in more local endemism, while the relatively easily-dispersed high-elevation cryptogams have little local differentiation. Our comparative approach demonstrates that complex scale-dependent differences between life forms may underlie the apparent simplicity of elevational gradients. Furthermore, elevational gradients summarized from distributional notes cannot be assumed to be proxies for elevational gradients on individual mountain slopes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Norwegian State Education Loan Fund (Lånekassen) for funding, the Norway-Tibet Network for partial travel support, and the Central Department of Botany, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal for leave to Baniya, CB. We also thank John Birks for his help in plant identifications and valuable suggestions after going through some earlier versions of this manuscript. Tsering, Cai Dong, Pubu, La Qiong, LaDuo, Droba, and Frode Falkenberg helped to complete this study. Thanks are also due to Kristian Hassel for helping with moss determinations, Per Magnus Jørgensen for helping identify lichens, Petr Šmilauer and three anonymous referees for their useful comments and suggestions. Thanks to Joachim Schmidt for the map of the study area. Michael Denslow provided linguistic editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Bergen, Allégaten, 5007, Bergen, Norway

    Chitra B. Baniya

  2. Central Department of Botany, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Chitra B. Baniya

  3. Department of Biology, University of Bergen, Postbox 7803, 5020, Bergen, Norway

    Torstein Solhøy

  4. Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, NO-1432, Ås, Norway

    Yngvar Gauslaa

  5. Department of Botany, Oklahoma State University, 104 LSE, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA

    Michael W. Palmer

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  1. Chitra B. Baniya
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Correspondence to Chitra B. Baniya.

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Baniya, C.B., Solhøy, T., Gauslaa, Y. et al. Richness and Composition of Vascular Plants and Cryptogams along a High Elevational Gradient on Buddha Mountain, Central Tibet. Folia Geobot 47, 135–151 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-011-9113-x

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