Woody and Herbaceous Plants of Inner Asia: Species Richness and Ecogeorgraphic Patterns
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y and Herbaceous Plants of Inner Asia: Species Richness and Ecogeorgraphic Patterns D. V. Sandanova, *, Y. Liub, **, Z. Wangb, ***, and A. Yu. Korolyukc, **** a
Institute of General and Experimental Biology, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ulan-Ude, 670047 Republic of Buryatia, Russia b Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871 China cCentral Siberian Botanical Garden, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, 630090 Russia *e-mail: [email protected] **e-mail: [email protected] ***e-mail: [email protected] ****e-mail: [email protected] Received December 17, 2019; revised January 3, 2020; accepted January 24, 2020
Abstract—The diversity of vascular plants in Inner Asia has been researched; the main environmental factors determining the distribution of species belonging to various life forms and having different distribution range sizes have been identified. The key factors determining species diversity in Inner Asia are past climate changes and precipitation parameters. By contrast, the temperature conditions of the current climate do not affect the species richness significantly. The following current climatic parameters are important for woody plants: precipitation seasonality, mean precipitation in winter and spring, and diurnal range of temperature. Quite the opposite, the species richness of herbaceous plants is determined by climate-change velocity from the midHolocene and Last Glacial Maximum, the spatial heterogeneity of precipitation, and mean summer temperatures. Over time, distribution ranges of rare plants in the studied region may be reduced due to the increasing aridization. Keywords: plant diversity, species richness, environmental factors, climate change, Inner Asia DOI: 10.1134/S1995425520040101
INTRODUCTION Studies on the distribution patterns of species richness have been traditionally carried out in vast regions with diverse flora, e.g., tropical mountain ecosystems (Antonelli et al., 2009) or tropical forests (Hoorn et al., 2010; Werneck et al., 2011). Concurrently, areas with relatively low diversity parameters of plant species, e.g., Inner Asia, remain poorly researched (Tietjen et al., 2009; Li and Yang, 2014). The center of Asia may significantly differ from equatorial or maritime areas by the spatial distribution of plants and speciesdiversity patterns. Modern studies are primarily aimed at identifying the total plant species diversity and its relationships with the climate; the effect of climatic changes on the diversity of species belonging to various life forms and having different distribution range sizes is researched to a far lesser extent (Albuquerque et al., 2011; Liu et al., 2019). Woody and herbaceous plants have different morphology types, different evolutionary descents, and different functional features, making it possible to assume that these life forms react differently to environmental changes. For instance, trees and herbs fea-
ture different depths of root bedding
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