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Disentangling spatial and island shape effects on bryophyte distribution in the Zhoushan Archipelago, China

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Abstract

Understanding the effects of island shape and dispersal limitation on species assemblages is important for the conservation of bryophytes in fragmented landscapes. In order to explore the comparative contributions of dispersal limitation vs environmental filtering, island shape vs other island attributes to bryophyte species assemblages in fragmented landscapes, we investigated bryophyte flora and environmental variables (island shape, area, elevation, and isolation degree) of 71 islands in the Zhoushan Archipelago in the East China Sea. We used redundancy analysis, canonical correspondence analysis and generalized linear mixed models to explore comparative contributions of dispersal limitation vs environmental filtering, shape vs other explanatory variables to bryophyte species composition and species richness. Dispersal limitation independently accounted for 15% of the total variation in species composition, which was higher than environmental filtering (6.6%). When island shape was the only constraining explanatory variable, it explained 22.5% of the total species richness variation. Variance partitioning showed that island shape per se explained 3.8% of the total variation in species richness and 18.7% of the variation was confounded by island shape and other variables. Island shape combined with area and elevation was a good predictor of bryophyte species richness, independently explaining 40% of the total SR variation. Among twenty tested bryophyte categories, eighteen categories had positive relationships of their species richness with island shape irregularity, their species richness linearly increasing with island shape irregularity to varying extents. Island shape irregularity exerted a stronger effect on the species richness of acrocarpous mosses than that of pleurocarpous mosses. Therefore, dispersal limitation exerted significant effects on bryophyte species assemblages, and island shape imposed a significant and taxon-specific effect on bryophyte species richness. Our findings implied that a forest reserve with a high irregular shape is favourable for bryophyte conservation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (32071643, 31570208) and the Nature Science Foundation of Shanghai (21ZR1447400). We thank Cheng Zang, Lichang Yan, Jinrong Cai, Qi Wang, Wei Wei, Shanghai Normal University, for their joining in the field collection. Thanks are also due to Prof. Tong Cao, Shanghai Normal University, for his identification of bryophyte specimens, two anonymous reviewers for the valuable comments and suggestions for improving the quality of the paper, and to Prof. Rod Seppelt, Bundall, Queensland, for his valuable suggestions to improve the manuscript.

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  1. College of Life Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, 200234, China

    Dandan Li, Feng Zhang, Guangyu Luo, Zhu Hua, Shuiliang Guo & Jing Yu

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  1. Dandan Li
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All authors participated in collecting specimens. DDL, FZ, GYL and HZ identified specimens. JY and SLG conceived and designed the work, identified specimens, performed the analysis and interpretation of data, and wrote the manuscript.

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to Shuiliang Guo or Jing Yu.

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Li, D., Zhang, F., Luo, G. et al. Disentangling spatial and island shape effects on bryophyte distribution in the Zhoushan Archipelago, China. Folia Geobot 57, 83–101 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-022-09413-2

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