Conradi Timo, Slingsby Jasper A, Midgley Guy F, Nottebrock Henning, Schweiger Andreas H, Higgins Steven I
Plant Ecology, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstraße 30, 95447, Bayreuth, Germany.
Fynbos Node, South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON), Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, 7735, Cape Town, South Africa.
New Phytol. 2020 Sep;227(5):1294-1306. doi: 10.1111/nph.16580. Epub 2020 May 12.
Biomes are constructs for organising knowledge on the structure and functioning of the world's ecosystems, and serve as useful units for monitoring how the biosphere responds to anthropogenic drivers, including climate change. The current practice of delimiting biomes relies on expert knowledge. Recent studies have questioned the value of such biome maps for comparative ecology and global-change research, partly due to their subjective origin. Here we propose a flexible method for developing biome maps objectively. The method uses range modelling of several thousands of plant species to reveal spatial attractors for different growth-form assemblages that define biomes. The workflow is illustrated using distribution data from 23 500 African plant species. In an example application, we create a biome map for Africa and use the fitted species models to project biome shifts. In a second example, we map gradients of growth-form suitability that can be used to identify sites for comparative ecology. This method provides a flexible framework that (1) allows a range of biome types to be defined according to user needs and (2) enables projections of biome changes that emerge purely from the individualistic responses of plant species to environmental changes.
生物群落是用于组织有关世界生态系统结构和功能知识的概念，并且作为监测生物圈如何响应包括气候变化在内的人为驱动因素的有用单元。当前划定生物群落的做法依赖于专家知识。近期研究对这类生物群落地图在比较生态学和全球变化研究中的价值提出了质疑，部分原因在于其主观来源。在此，我们提出一种客观绘制生物群落地图的灵活方法。该方法利用数千种植物物种的分布建模来揭示定义生物群落的不同生长型组合的空间吸引子。使用来自23500种非洲植物物种的分布数据说明了该工作流程。在一个示例应用中，我们绘制了非洲的生物群落地图，并使用拟合的物种模型来预测生物群落的变化。在第二个示例中，我们绘制了生长型适宜性梯度图，可用于确定比较生态学的研究地点。此方法提供了一个灵活的框架，（1）允许根据用户需求定义一系列生物群落类型，（2）能够预测完全由植物物种对环境变化的个体响应所导致的生物群落变化。
