He Jingyang, Yang Wenjing, You Qinghui, Hu Qiwu, Cong Mingyang, Tian Chao, Ma Keping
Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research (Jiangxi Normal University), Ministry of Education, Nanchang 330022, China.
School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China.
Plant Divers. 2025 Feb 21;47(3):403-414. doi: 10.1016/j.pld.2025.02.001. eCollection 2025 May.
Biological collections are critical for the understanding of species distributions and for formulating biodiversity conservation strategies. However, biological collections are susceptible to various biases, including the "road-map effect", meaning that the geography of biological collections can be influenced by road networks. Here, using species occurrence records derived from 921,233 plant specimens, we quantified the intensity of the "road-map effect" on floristic collections of China, and investigated its relationships with various environmental and socio-economic variables. Species occurrence records mainly distributed in major mountain ranges, while lowlands were underrepresented. The distance of species occurrence records to the nearest road decreased from 19.54 km in 1960s to 3.58 km in 2010s. These records showed significant clustering within 5 km and 10 km buffer zones of roads. The road density surrounding these records was significantly higher than that in random patterns. Collectively, our results confirmed a significant "road-map effect" in the floristic collections of China, and this effect has substantially intensified from the 1960s to the 2010s, even after controlling for the impact of road network expansion. Topographic, climatic and socio-economic variables that determine regional species diversity, vegetation cover and human impact on vegetation played crucial roles in predicting the intensity of the "road-map effect". Our findings indicate that biological surveys have become increasingly dependent on road networks, a trend rarely reported in published studies. Future floristic surveys in China should prioritize the lowland areas that have experienced stronger human disturbances, as well as remote areas that may harbor more unique and rare species.
生物标本馆对于理解物种分布和制定生物多样性保护策略至关重要。然而，生物标本馆容易受到各种偏差的影响，包括“路线图效应”，即生物标本馆的地理分布会受到道路网络的影响。在此，我们利用来自921,233份植物标本的物种分布记录，量化了“路线图效应”对中国植物区系标本采集的影响强度，并研究了其与各种环境和社会经济变量的关系。物种分布记录主要集中在主要山脉，而低地地区的记录较少。物种分布记录到最近道路的距离从20世纪60年代的19.54公里降至21世纪10年代的3.58公里。这些记录在道路5公里和10公里缓冲区内呈现出显著的聚集现象。这些记录周围的道路密度显著高于随机分布模式。总体而言，我们的结果证实了中国植物区系标本采集中存在显著的“路线图效应”，并且即使在控制了道路网络扩张的影响之后，这种效应从20世纪60年代到21世纪10年代仍大幅增强。决定区域物种多样性、植被覆盖以及人类对植被影响的地形、气候和社会经济变量在预测“路线图效应”强度方面发挥了关键作用。我们的研究结果表明，生物调查越来越依赖道路网络，这一趋势在已发表的研究中鲜有报道。中国未来的植物区系调查应优先关注人类干扰较强的低地地区，以及可能蕴藏更多独特和珍稀物种的偏远地区。
