Combining geodiversity with climate and topography to account for threatened species richness

Climate and Bedrock Collectively Influence the Diversity Pattern of Plant Communities in Qiniangshan Mountain

Climate and geological diversity have been proven to make an important contribution to biodiversity. Volcanic ecosystems often have a long geological history and diverse bedrock, thus shaping a variety of habitats. Understanding the relative importance and role of the contemporary climate and geological bedrock environment in volcanic biodiversity still needs further exploration. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated the patterns of plant diversity and phylogenetic structure at the community level in Qiniangshan Mountain, while also exploring the relationship between biodiversity and regional environmental factors (e.g., climate and bedrock types). In the Qiniangshan Mountain plant communities, species richness is higher at mid-to-high elevations. Montane communities exhibit higher species richness compared to coastal communities. There are significant differences in species richness among plant communities on different bedrock, with the highest species richness found on pyroclastic lava. Bedrock, along with climate factors related to energy and precipitation, collectively influence the patterns of species richness in plant communities. The Net Relatedness Index (NRI) of plant communities is influenced by climate factors and aspects, while the Nearest Taxon Index (NTI) is affected by both bedrock and climate factors. The Phylogenetic Diversity Index (PDI) is primarily related to climate factors. Climate and bedrock collectively influence the patterns of species richness and phylogenetic structure within Qiniangshan Mountain's plant communities. These findings highlight the profound impact of both climate and bedrock on montane vegetation and community biodiversity.

Quantification of geomorphodiversity and its spatial distribution with the flood inundation areas for Assam, India

Assam, located in the Northeast of India, is highly flood-prone, and the erosional and depositional processes highly influence the landforms. The formation and development of landforms are directly related to the geology, geomorphology, drainage basin characteristics, and soil types of the region. In the present study, a remote sensing and GIS-based geomorphodiversity index (GMI) assessment of Assam is performed using three sub-indices: geodiversity, morphometric diversity, and drainage diversity index. Sixty-six potential geomorphosites are identified with their geological, geomorphological, and GMI classes. With the help of a flood inundation map, the inundated area of each GMI class is calculated. According to the result, 27.02%, 10.76%, and 3.7% of the total area of Assam fall under moderate, high, and very high GMI classes, respectively. Barak Valley and Central Assam region exhibit high to very high GMI values. Geology and geomorphology have a strong influence on GMI values. About 22.32%, 28.33%, 37.18%, 38.25%, and 35.37% of areas with low, moderate, high, and very high GMI are inundated, respectively. This study determined that areas having high GMI can increase the geomorphological heritage value of the region and can play a significant role in promoting geotourism with an increase in the scientific, educational, and aesthetic value of geomorphosites. This study can also help the local governing authorities to conduct and implement better management and conservation policies for vulnerable locations.

Towards a taxonomy of geodiversity

Geodiversity is a topical concept in earth and environmental sciences. Geodiversity information is needed to conserve nature, use ecosystem services and achieve sustainable development goals. Despite the increasing demand for geodiversity data, there exists no comprehensive system for categorizing geodiversity. Here, we present a hierarchically structured taxonomy that is potentially applicable in mapping and quantifying geodiversity across different regions, environments and scales. In this taxonomy, the main components of geodiversity are geology, geomorphology, hydrology and pedology. We propose a six-level hierarchical system where the components of geodiversity are classified at progressively lower taxonomic levels based on their genesis, physical-chemical properties and morphology. This comprehensive taxonomy can be used to compile geodiversity information for scientific research and various applications of value to society and nature conservation. Ultimately, this hierarchical system is the first step towards developing a global geodiversity taxonomy. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Geodiversity for science and society'.

Geodiversity data for Europe

Geodiversity is an essential part of nature's diversity. However, geodiversity is insufficiently understood in terms of its spatial distribution and its relationship to biodiversity over large spatial extents. Here, we present European geodiversity data at resolutions of 1 km and 10 km. We assess terrestrial geodiversity quantitatively as a richness variable (georichness) using a commonly employed grid-based approach. The data incorporate aspects of geological, pedological, geomorphological and hydrological diversity, which are also available as separate richness variables. To evaluate the data, we correlated European georichness with empirically tested national georichness data from Finland, revealing a positive correlation at both 1 km (rp = 0.37, p < 0.001) and 10 km (rp = 0.59, p < 0.001) resolutions. We also demonstrate potential uses of the European data by correlating georichness with vascular plant species richness in two contrasting example areas: Finland and Switzerland. The positive correlations between georichness and species richness in Finland (rp = 0.34, p < 0.001) and Switzerland (rp = 0.26, p < 0.001) further support the use of our data in geodiversity-biodiversity research. Moreover, there is great potential beyond geodiversity-biodiversity questions, as the data can be exploited across different regions, ecosystems and scales. These geodiversity data provide an insight on abiotic diversity in Europe and establish a quantitative large-scale geodiversity assessment method applicable worldwide. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Geodiversity for science and society'.

Geography of Indian Butterflies: Patterns Revealed by Checklists of Federal States

Butterflies are widely used to analyze biogeographical patterns, both at the global and regional scales. Thus far, most of the latter originated from well-surveyed northern regions, while the species-rich tropical areas lag due to a lack of appropriate data. We used checklists of 1379 butterfly species recorded in 36 federal states of the Republic of India (1) to explore the basic macroecological rules, and (2) to relate species richness and the distribution of endemics and geographic elements to geography, climate, land covers and socioeconomic conditions of the states. The area, land covers diversity and latitude did not affect species richness, whereas topographic diversity and the precipitation/temperature ratio (energy availability) were positive predictors. This is due the geographic and climatic idiosyncrasies of the Indian subcontinent, with its highest species richness in the small, densely forested mountainous northeast that receives summer monsoons. The peninsular effect that decreases the richness towards the tip of subcontinent is counterbalanced by the mountainous forested Western Ghats. Afrotropical elements are associated with savannahs, while Palearctic elements are associated with treeless habitats. The bulk of Indian butterfly richness, and the highest conservation priorities, overlap with global biodiversity hotspots, but the mountainous states of the Western Himalayas and the savannah states of peninsular India host distinctive faunas.

Understanding trait diversity: the role of geodiversity

Geodiversity - the abiotic heterogeneity of Earth's (sub)surface - is gaining recognition for its ecological links to biodiversity. However, theoretical and conceptual knowledge of geodiversity-trait diversity relationships is currently lacking and can improve understanding of abiotic drivers of community assembly. Here we synthesise the state of knowledge of these relationships. We find that some components of geodiversity (e.g., topographic heterogeneity) elicit strong trait responses, whereas other components (e.g., substrate heterogeneity) have marginal effects in driving trait distributions. However, current knowledge is lacking in key aspects, including geodiversity's effect on trait-specific diversity and intraspecific variation. We call for the explicit inclusion of geodiversity when relating environmental drivers to trait diversity, taking advantage of the increasing availability of trait and geodiversity data.

Biodiversity conservation adaptation to climate change: Protecting the actors or the stage

To be able to protect biodiversity in coming decades, conservation strategies need to consider what sites will be important for species not just today but also in the future. Different methods have been proposed to identify places that will be important for species in the future. Two of the most frequently used methods, ecological niche modeling and climate resilience, have distinct aims. The former focuses on identifying the suitable environmental conditions for species, thus protecting the "actor," namely, the species, whereas the latter seeks to safeguard the "stage," or the landscape in which species occur. We used the two methods to identify climate refugia for 258 forest vertebrates under short- and long-term climatic changes in a biodiversity hotspot, the Appalachian ecoregion of the United States. We also evaluated the spatial congruence of the two approaches for a possible conservation application, that of protecting 30% of the Appalachian region, in line with recent national and international policy recommendations. We detected weak positive correlations between resilience scores and baseline vertebrate richness, estimated with ecological niche models for historical (baseline) climatic conditions. The correlations were stronger for amphibians and mammals than for birds and reptiles. Under climate change scenarios, the correlations between estimated vertebrate richness and resilience were also weakly positive; a positive correlation was detected only for amphibians. Locations with estimated future gain of suitable climatic conditions for vertebrates showed low correlation with resilience. Overall, our results indicate that climate resilience and ecological niche modeling approaches capture different characteristics of projected distributional changes of Appalachian vertebrates. A climate resilience (the stage) approach could be more effective in safeguarding species with low dispersal abilities, whereas an ecological niche modeling (the actor) approach could be more suitable for species with long-distance dispersal capacity because they may be more broadly impacted by climate and less sensitive to geophysical features captured by a climate resilience approach.

Precipitation and potential evapotranspiration determine the distribution patterns of threatened plant species in Sichuan Province, China

A fundamental goal of ecologists is to determine the large-scale gradients in species richness. The threatened plants are the priority of such studies because of their narrow distribution and confinement to a specific habitat. Studying the distribution patterns of threatened plants is crucial for identifying global conservation prioritization. In this study, the richness pattern of threatened plant species along spatial and elevation gradients in Sichuan Province of China was investigated, considering climatic, habitat-heterogeneity (HHET), geometric constraint and human-induced factors. The species richness pattern was analyzed, and the predictor variables, including mean annual temperature (MAT), mean annual precipitation (MAP), potential evapotranspiration (PET), HHET, and disturbance (DIST), to species richness were linked using the geographical distribution data of threatened species compiled at a spatial resolution of 20 km × 20 km. Generalized linear models and structural equation modelling were used to determine the individual and combined effects of each variable on species richness patterns. Results showed a total of 137 threatened plant species were distributed between 200 and 4800 m.a.s.l. The central region of the province harbors the highest species diversity. MAP and PET profoundly explained the richness pattern. Moreover, the significant role of DIST in the richness patterns of threatened plants was elucidated. These findings could help determine the richness pattern of threatened plant species in other mountainous regions of the world, with consideration of the impact of climate change.

Representation of the world's biophysical conditions by the global protected area network

Protected areas (PAs) are often implemented without consideration of already existing PAs, which is likely to cause an overrepresentation of certain biophysical conditions. We assessed the representativeness of the current PA network with regard to the world's biophysical conditions to highlight which conditions are underprotected and where these conditions are located. We overlaid terrestrial and marine PAs with information on biophysical conditions (e.g., temperature, precipitation, and elevation) and then quantified the percentage of area covered by the PA network. For 1 variable at a time in the terrestrial realm, high temperature, low precipitation, and medium and very high elevation were underrepresented. For the marine realm, low and medium sea surface temperature (SST), medium and high sea surface salinity (SSS), and the deep sea were underrepresented. Overall, protection was evenly distributed for elevation across the terrestrial realm and SST across the marine realm. For 2 variables at a time, cold and very dry terrestrial environments had mostly low protection, which was also the case for low SST and low and medium SSS across most depths for marine environments. Low protection occurred mostly in the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula for the terrestrial realm and along the Tropic of Capricorn and toward the poles for the marine realm. Although biodiversity measures are of prime importance for the design of PA networks, highlighting biophysical gaps in current PAs adds a frequently overlooked perspective. These gaps may weaken the potential of PAs to conserve biodiversity. Thus, our results may provide useful insights for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to establish a more comprehensive global PA network.

A Quantitative GIS and AHP Based Analysis for Geodiversity Assessment and Mapping

In recent times, the issues of geodiversity assessment and mapping have been subject of great attention, and many evaluation methodologies, either quantitative or qualitative, have been developed. In this research, a first assessment of geodiversity in the Liguria region has been carried out, according to a quantitative method based on spatial analysis techniques implemented in a GIS environment. This method considers four diversity indices obtained by grid analysis, relevant to the four main aspects of geodiversity: geology, geomorphology, hydrogeology and pedology. The geodiversity index was calculated two times, first with a non-weighted sum, then with a weighted sum of the four diversity indices. In the second case, the weights have been assigned according to a semi-quantitative analytical hierarchy process method (AHP) based on experts’ judgment. The results show that the Liguria region is characterized by many areas with high geodiversity, most of them internationally known by geoscientists and tourists for their valuable geoheritage and for their stunning landscapes. The correspondence between these areas and the protected areas of the european Natura 2000 network suggests a link between geodiversity and biodiversity.

China's national nature reserve network shows great imbalances in conserving the country's mega-diverse vegetation

The National Nature Reserve (NNR) network forms a central element in China's governmental strategy to conserve the country's vast biodiversity and its varied ecosystems. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of the existing NNR network in protecting China's highly diverse habitats and the fauna and flora they contain has remained unclear. Here, we analyze how comprehensively the existing NNR network protects China's vegetation diversity, identifying potential gaps to inform future NNR designations. Covering ~15.7% of China's land area, the existing nature reserve network contains 18 main vegetation types and 26 sub-types. All main vegetation types are also contained in the National-level Nature Reserves (NNRs), but to highly differing degrees. NNRs cover ~24.0% of China's grasslands, but only ~3.3% of the country's monsoon forests. With regards to main vegetation regions, about 41.4% of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau is covered by NNRs, in contrast to only ~4.6% of the region representing warm-temperate deciduous broad-leaved forests. In five main vegetation regions, NNRs cover <10% of the area and are scattered across a highly fragmented network, leading for example to China's highly biodiverse subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests being conserved only in small, isolated NNRs. NNRs also greatly vary in the number of vegetation types they individually comprise, with only 64 NNRs (18.9%) individually containing >50% of the vegetation types in their respective region. Overall, NNR size increases and fragmentation decreases from China's south-east to its western provinces. The resulting, extremely uneven distribution of NNRs across China limits their effectiveness in protection the country's plant diversity treasure trove. The country's NNR network therefore needs significant adjustments to effectively conserve China's valuable natural resources for future generations.

Old Processes, New Movements: The Inclusion of Geodiversity in Biological and Ecological Discourse

There exists substantial variation in the qualitative and quantitative interpretations of the concept of geodiversity and its embedded elements and values. The resulting divergence and ambiguity in applications of the term constrain its present use as an operationalized concept in nature conservation research and discourse, unlike its seemingly analogous biotic term, ‘biodiversity’. This paper presents findings from a critical literature review of 299 academic journal articles and texts that define geodiversity values, or otherwise incorporate geodiversity or its derived elements and values as components of conservation. Contrary to previous suggestions, we have found that most geoscientists have united behind a single definition of geodiversity and applied it frequently in their primary and applied, geotouristic, research. Qualitative elements of geodiversity, including system support values and aesthetic appeals within nature conservation, have been largely confined to geoconservation and geoscientific literature and are nearly absent from biological discourse. Encouragingly, however, we have observed a more recent increase in research pertaining to quantitative interpretations of abiotic geodiversity elements and their relationship with the spatial distribution and abundance of species. Although the inclusion of geodiversity elements (quantitative and qualitative) in conservation assessment and biodiversity research has been and remains far less universal than for biodiversity elements, there is strong potential for further unification of these two concepts, especially though collaborative quantitative research. The more that geodiversity is discussed outside of geographic and geoscientific disciplines, broader recognition and validated use of the concept of geodiversity will be used in the understanding, interpretation, and protection of patterns and processes at the landscape scale.

Dahlin K, Latimer AM, Wilson AM, Grady JM, Ollinger SV, Finley AO. Towards connecting biodiversity and geodiversity across scales with satellite remote sensing

ISSUE

Geodiversity (i.e., the variation in Earth's abiotic processes and features) has strong effects on biodiversity patterns. However, major gaps remain in our understanding of how relationships between biodiversity and geodiversity vary over space and time. Biodiversity data are globally sparse and concentrated in particular regions. In contrast, many forms of geodiversity can be measured continuously across the globe with satellite remote sensing. Satellite remote sensing directly measures environmental variables with grain sizes as small as tens of metres and can therefore elucidate biodiversity-geodiversity relationships across scales.

EVIDENCE

We show how one important geodiversity variable, elevation, relates to alpha, beta and gamma taxonomic diversity of trees across spatial scales. We use elevation from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and c. 16,000 Forest Inventory and Analysis plots to quantify spatial scaling relationships between biodiversity and geodiversity with generalized linear models (for alpha and gamma diversity) and beta regression (for beta diversity) across five spatial grains ranging from 5 to 100 km. We illustrate different relationships depending on the form of diversity; beta and gamma diversity show the strongest relationship with variation in elevation.

CONCLUSION

With the onset of climate change, it is more important than ever to examine geodiversity for its potential to foster biodiversity. Widely available satellite remotely sensed geodiversity data offer an important and expanding suite of measurements for understanding and predicting changes in different forms of biodiversity across scales. Interdisciplinary research teams spanning biodiversity, geoscience and remote sensing are well poised to advance understanding of biodiversity-geodiversity relationships across scales and guide the conservation of nature.

Soil carbon is a useful surrogate for conservation planning in developing nations

Defining the optimal placement of areas for biodiversity conservation in developing nations remains a significant challenge. Our best methods for spatially targeting potential locations for biodiversity conservation rely heavily on extensive georeferenced species observation data which is often incomplete or lacking in developing nations. One possible solution is the use of surrogates that enable site assessments of potential biodiversity values which use either indicator taxa or abiotic variables, or both. Among the plethora of abiotic variables, soil carbon has previously been identified as a potentially powerful predictor for threatened biodiversity, but this has not yet been confirmed with direct observational data. Here we assess the potential value of soil carbon for spatial prediction of threatened species using direct measurements as well as a wide range of GIS derived abiotic values as surrogates for threatened plant species in the PEBANPA network of permanent plots in Southern Patagonia. We find that soil carbon significantly improves the performance of a biodiversity surrogate elaborated using abiotic variables to predict the presence of threatened species. Soil carbon could thus help to prioritize sites in conservation planning. Further, the results suggest that soil carbon on its own can be a much better surrogate than other abiotic variables when prioritization of sites for conservation are calibrated on increasingly small sets of observation plots. We call for the inclusion of soil carbon data in the elaboration of surrogates used to optimize conservation investments in the developing world.

Spatial relationship between climatic diversity and biodiversity conservation value

Capturing the full range of climatic diversity in a reserve network is expected to improve the resilience of biodiversity to climate change. Therefore, a study on systematic conservation planning for climatic diversity that explicitly or implicitly hypothesizes that regions with higher climatic diversity support greater biodiversity is needed. However, little is known about the extent and generality of this hypothesis. We used the case of Yunnan, southwest China, to quantitatively classify climatic units and modeled 4 climatic diversity indicators, including the variety (VCU), rarity (RCU), endemism (ECU) of climatic units, and a composite index of climatic diversity (CICD). We used 5 schemes that reliably identify priority conservation areas (PCAs) to identify areas with high biodiversity conservation value. We then investigated the spatial relationships between the 4 climatic diversity indicators and the results of the 5 PCA schemes and assessed the representation of climatic diversity within the existing nature reserves. The CICD was the best indicator of areas with high conservation value, followed by ECU and RCU. Contrary to conventional knowledge, VCU was not positively associated with biodiversity conservation value. The rarer or more endemic climatic units tended to have higher reserve coverage than the more common units. However, only 28 units, covering 10.5% of the land in Yunnan, had >17% of their areas protected. In addition to climatic factors, topography and human disturbances also significantly affected the relationship between climatic diversity and biodiversity conservation value. Our results suggest that climatic diversity can be an effective surrogate for establishing a more robust reserve network under climate change in Yunnan. Our study improves understanding of the relationship between climatic diversity and biodiversity and helps build an evidence-based foundation for systematic conservation planning that targets climatic diversity in response to climate change.

Models of upland species' distributions are improved by accounting for geodiversity

CONTEXT

Recent research suggests that novel geodiversity data on landforms, hydrology and surface materials can improve biodiversity models at the landscape scale by quantifying abiotic variability more effectively than commonly used measures of spatial heterogeneity. However, few studies consider whether these variables can account for, and improve our understanding of, species' distributions.

OBJECTIVES

Assess the role of geodiversity components as macro-scale controls of plant species' distributions in a montane landscape.

METHODS

We used an innovative approach to quantifying a landscape, creating an ecologically meaningful geodiversity dataset that accounted for hydrology, morphometry (landforms derived from geomorphometric techniques), and soil parent material (data from expert sources). We compared models with geodiversity to those just using topographic metrics (e.g. slope and elevation) and climate data. Species distribution models (SDMs) were produced for 'rare' (N = 76) and 'common' (N = 505) plant species at 1 km2 resolution for the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland.

RESULTS

The addition of automatically produced landform geodiversity data and hydrological features to a basic SDM (climate, elevation, and slope) resulted in a significant improvement in model fit across all common species' distribution models. Adding further geodiversity data on surface materials resulted in a less consistent statistical improvement, but added considerable conceptual value to many individual rare and common SDMs.

CONCLUSIONS

The geodiversity data used here helped us capture the abiotic environment's heterogeneity and allowed for explicit links between the geophysical landscape and species' ecology. It is encouraging that relatively simple and easily produced geodiversity data have the potential to improve SDMs. Our findings have important implications for applied conservation and support the need to consider geodiversity in management.

Effect of anthropogenic factors, landscape structure, land relief, soil and climate on risk of alien plant invasion at regional scale

We compared the effectiveness of explanatory variables representing different environmental spheres on the risk of alien plant invasion. Using boosted regression trees (BRT), we assessed the effect of anthropogenic factors, soil variables, land relief, climate and landscape structure on neophyte richness (NR) (alien plant species introduced after the 15th century). Data on NR were derived from a 2 × 2 km grid covering a total area of 31,200 km² of the Carpathian massif and its foreground, Central Europe. Each of the examined environmental spheres explained NR, but their explanatory ability varied more than two-folds. Climatic variables explained the highest fraction of deviation, followed by anthropogenic factors, soil type, land relief and landscape structure. The global model, which incorporated crucial variables from all studied environmental spheres, had the best explanatory ability. However, the explained deviation was far smaller than the sum of the deviations explained by the single-sphere models. The global model showed that the deviation that could be explained by variables representing particular spheres, overlapped. The variables representing landscape structure were not included in the global model as they were found to be redundant. Finally, the climatic variables explained a smaller fraction of the deviation than the anthropogenic factors. The partial dependency plots allowed the assessment of the course of dependencies between NR and particular explanatory variables after eliminating the average effect of all other variables. The relationships were usually curvilinear and revealed some values of environmental variables beyond which NR changed considerably.

Rough wave-like heaped overburden promotes establishment of woody vegetation while leveling promotes grasses during unassisted post mining site development

Geodiversity plays an important role in species establishment during spontaneous succession. At post-mining sites in the Czech Republic in 2003, we established plots in which the surface of the heaped overburden was either kept wave-like or leveled. Based on surveys conducted from 2006 to 2015, leveled plots were increasingly dominated by grasses and herbs (and especially by the grass Calamagrostis epigejos) while the wave-like plots were increasingly dominated by the trees Salix caprea and Betula pendula. In 2015, a detailed survey was conducted of the dominant species. Both S. caprea and B. pendula occurred more often in wave-like plots than in leveled plots; this was particularly true for trees taller than 1 m, which were absent in leveled plots. In wave-like plots, leaf and root biomasses of both woody species were higher on the wave slopes than on the wave depressions. Nitrogen content was higher but content stress indicating proline in leaves of S. caprea was lower in wave-like plots than in leveled plots. In wave-like plots, both woody species occurred mainly on wave slopes but C. epigejos occurred mainly in the depressions. We speculate that trees were more abundant in wave-like plots than in leveled plots because the waves trapped tree seeds and snow and because the soil porosity was greater in wave-like than in leveled plots. Grasses may have preferred the leveled plots because soil porosity was lower and clay content was higher in leveled than in wave-like plots.