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Modelling native and alien vascular plant species richness: at which scales is geodiversity most relevant?

Bailey, Joseph J.; Boyd, Doreen S.; Hjort, Jan; Lavers, Chris P.; Field, Richard

Authors

Joseph J. Bailey

DOREEN BOYD doreen.boyd@nottingham.ac.uk
Professor of Earth Observation

Jan Hjort

Chris P. Lavers



Abstract

Aim: To explore the scale-dependency of relationships between novel geodiversity measures and 26 both native and alien vascular plant species richness.
Location: Great Britain
Time period: Data collected 1995-2015
Major taxa: Vascular plants
Methods: We calculated terrestrial native and alien vascular plant species richness (6,932 species in total) across the island of Great Britain at 1km2 (N=219,964) and 100km2 (N=2,121) grain sizes and regional extents 25-250 km in diameter, centred around each 100km2 cell. We compiled geodiversity data on landforms, soils, hydrological and geological features using existing national datasets, and used a newly developed geomorphometric method to extract landform coverage data (e.g. hollows, ridges, valleys, peaks). We used these as predictors of species richness, alongside climate, commonly used topographic metrics, land-cover variety and human population. We analysed species richness across scales using boosted regression tree (BRT) modelling and compared models with and without geodiversity data.
Results: Geodiversity significantly improved models over and above widely used topographic metrics, particularly at smaller extents and the finer grain size, and slightly more so for native species richness. For each increase in extent, the contribution of climatic variables increased and that of geodiversity decreased. Of the geodiversity variables, automatically extracted landform data added the most explanatory power, but hydrology (rivers, lakes) and materials (soil, superficial deposits, geology) were also important.
Main conclusions Geodiversity improves our understanding of, and ability to model, the relationship between species richness and abiotic heterogeneity at multiple spatial scales by allowing us to get closer to the real-world physical processes that affect patterns of life. Greatest benefit comes from measuring the constituent parts of geodiversity separately, rather than one combined variable (as for most of the few studies to date). Automatically extracted landform data, the use of which is novel in ecology and biogeography, proved particularly valuable in our study.

Citation

Bailey, J. J., Boyd, D. S., Hjort, J., Lavers, C. P., & Field, R. (2017). Modelling native and alien vascular plant species richness: at which scales is geodiversity most relevant?. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 26(7), https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12574

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 18, 2016
Online Publication Date Mar 6, 2017
Publication Date Jul 1, 2017
Deposit Date Jan 17, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Global Ecology and Biogeography
Print ISSN 1466-822X
Electronic ISSN 1466-8238
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 26
Issue 7
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12574
Keywords alien species, biodiversity, conserving Nature’s stage, environmental heterogeneity, 23 geodiversity, geology, geomorphometry, native species, scale, vascular plants
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/967649
Publisher URL http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.12574/full

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