Zhou Xinyi, Zhang Zhaoxiang, White James F, Miao Yingxiang, Li Shanjia
School of Life Science and Engineering Lanzhou University of Technology Lanzhou China.
Department of Plant Biology Rutgers University New Brunswick New Jersey USA.
Ecol Evol. 2025 Sep 7;15(9):e72114. doi: 10.1002/ece3.72114. eCollection 2025 Sep.
Desert plant communities play an irreplaceable role in maintaining the ecological balance of arid areas. Understanding the spatial distribution pattern of desert plant diversity and its environmental response mechanism is particularly important for the protection of regional biodiversity, and combining phylogenetic information can provide more in-depth insights. To this end, this study conducted a survey of desert plant communities along the southeast to northwest direction of the Hexi Corridor, revealing the variation patterns of species and phylogenetic diversity (PD) indicators along longitude, latitude, and altitude, and explored the driving factors of these patterns in combination with geographical, climatic, and soil factors. The results showed that the changes in species diversity (Shannon-Wiener and Margalef) and PD along longitude and latitude showed a unimodal model, with the highest value in the central region. The dispersion of phylogenetic structure decreases with increasing altitude, with divergent patterns at low altitudes and clustered patterns at high altitudes. In addition, we found that soil factors such as soil available phosphorus (SAP), soil total phosphorus (STP), and soil available nitrogen (SAN) dominated the variation of species diversity, and the PD was also mainly regulated by soil available phosphorus (SAP), while the main influencing factor of the phylogenetic structure was the average annual temperature (AMT), indicating that the community diversity pattern was driven by soil nutrients and climatic factors. The study reveals the relative roles of different environmental factors in shaping community diversity and provides a scientific basis for formulating effective desert ecosystem protection strategies.
荒漠植物群落对于维持干旱地区的生态平衡起着不可替代的作用。了解荒漠植物多样性的空间分布格局及其环境响应机制，对于保护区域生物多样性尤为重要，结合系统发育信息能够提供更深入的见解。为此，本研究沿河西走廊自东南向西北方向开展了荒漠植物群落调查，揭示了物种和系统发育多样性（PD）指标沿经度、纬度和海拔的变化格局，并结合地理、气候和土壤因素探究了这些格局的驱动因素。结果表明，物种多样性（香农 - 威纳指数和马加利夫指数）和PD沿经度和纬度的变化呈单峰模型，在中部地区值最高。系统发育结构的离散度随海拔升高而降低，低海拔处呈发散型格局，高海拔处呈聚集型格局。此外，我们发现土壤有效磷（SAP）、土壤全磷（STP）和土壤有效氮（SAN）等土壤因素主导了物种多样性的变化，PD也主要受土壤有效磷（SAP）调控，而系统发育结构的主要影响因素是年均温度（AMT），这表明群落多样性格局受土壤养分和气候因素驱动。该研究揭示了不同环境因素在塑造群落多样性中的相对作用，为制定有效的荒漠生态系统保护策略提供了科学依据。
