Patterns of vascular plant diversity at continental to global scales

By W. Barthlott, Alexandra Hostert, Gerold Kier, Wolfgang Kueper, H. Kreft, J. Mutke, M. D. Rafiqpoor, J. Sommer. 2007

455 citations recorded by the source corpus.

MUTKE, J. & BARTHLOTT, W. 2005. Patterns of vascular plant diversity at continental to global scales. Biol. Skr. 55: 521-531. ISSN 0366-3612. ISBN 87-7304-304-4. The studies presented in this paper analyse diversity patterns of land plants (mosses, ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms) at continental to global scales. A revised version of our earlier world map of vascular plant species richness and the first maps of species richness of mosses and gymnosperms on a global scale are presented. Diversity patterns of vascular plants are correlated with different measures of geodiversity (the diversity of the abiotic environment). Global centres of vascular plant diversity coincide with highly structured, geodiverse areas in the tropics and subtropics. These are the Choco-Costa Rica region, the tropical eastern Andes and the north western Amazonia, the eastern Brazil, the northern Borneo, and New Guinea, as well as the South African Cape region, southern Mexico, East Himalaya, western Sumatra, Malaysia, and eastern Madagascar. Constraints imposed by the physical environment, such as the length of the thermal vegetation period or water availability, shape large scale trends of biodiversity. However, important centres of species richness and endemism can only be explained when taking into account the history of the floras. The main diversity centres in SE Asia are the same for gymnosperms as for all other vascular plants, but in other parts of the tropics and subtropics there is low gymnosperm diversity. The exceptions to this pattern are Mexico and California, which have almost as many species of gymnosperms as SE Asia. The increase in the number of species and genera published during the last 250 years is documented, based on data from the Index Kewensis. The first continental maps of Cactaceae diversity at species and genus level are used to show how choice of the taxonomic level affects the analysis and its implications for priority setting in biodiversity conservation. In this context, global biodiversity hotspots are discussed and an alternative world map of hotspots is proposed.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a04d25a7846f79e9739a7adf31c529024f460d27

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Citations in the corpus

A flexible multi-scale approach for standardised recording of plant species richness patterns (2009, background): “For species diversity as the central dimension of biodiversity, global patterns are well documented and reasonably understood for vascular plants and vertebrates, but only at large spatial scales (10,000 km2 and more) (Gaston, 2000; Mutke and Barthlott, 2005).”
A global assessment of endemism and species richness across island and mainland regions (2009, background): “The high values of tropical montane areas might be partly because of steep elevational and climatic gradients resulting in high species turnover (41, 46, 47).”
Reasons for an outstanding plant diversity in the tropical Andes of southern Ecuador. (2009, background): “Thus, it is not surprising that the global plant-biodiversity census for vascular plants carried out by Mutke & Barthlott (2005) and Barthlott et al. (2007) points out the tropical Andes-Amazonia transition zone in Ecuador being one of five „megadiverse hotspots“.”
European grassland ecosystems: threatened hotspots of biodiversity (2013, background): “…not homogenously distributed across the globe, but concentrated in certain regions, has fascinated biologists for centuries and has been the inspiration and focus of key ecological and evolutionary theories (Darwin 1859; Wallace 1860; Briggs 1988; Wiley 1988; Gaston 2001; Mutke and Barthlott 2005).”
Deficiency in African plant distribution data - missing pieces of the puzzle (2006, background): “…of species richness are more strongly correlated with the continental patterns of species richness in the global map of plant diversity by Barthlott et al. (1999) and Mutke & Barthlott (2005) (r2 = 0.57, N = 1735, P < 0.05) than the documented patterns of species (r2 = 0.34, N = 1735, P < 0.05).”
Fighting their last stand? A global analysis of the distribution and conservation status of gymnosperms (2015, background): “Information regarding spatial distribution and biodiversity is central to many fundamental questions in biogeography, macroecology and conservation biology (Mutke & Barthlott, 2005; Collen et al., 2014).”
Global patterns of plant diversity and floristic knowledge (2005, methodology): “This data set was also used by Mutke & Barthlott (2005) and Barthlott et al. (in press).”
World checklist of hornworts and liverworts (2016, background): “The periods of highest rates of new species described in the 1830s and around 1900 are the same for seed plants (Mutke and Barthlott 2005).”
Completeness of digital accessible knowledge of the plants of Brazil and priorities for survey and inventory (2014, background): “A few studies have assessed knowledge of plant distributions and diversity globally (Barthlott et al., 1996, 1999; Kier et al., 2005; Mutke & Barthlott, 2005).”
Odd man out: why are there fewer plant species in African rain forests? (2014, background): “Keywords Odd man out Neotropics South-East Asia Diversification rates Extinction Fossil record Biogeography Palms”
The biogeography and filtering of woody plant functional diversity in North and South America (2012, background): “Recent studies have produced remarkably detailed maps depicting how plant species richness varies across the earth (Kier et al., 2005; Mutke & Barthlott, 2005), fostering more thorough tests of the numerous hypotheses put forward to explain the origin and maintenance of species diversity (e.g.…”
The evolution of African plant diversity (2014, unknown): “These patterns are based on analysis of 5881 species analyzed at a 1◦ level (Linder, 2001), but the broad pattern matches the diversity estimates based on whole floras (Küper et al., 2004; Mutke and Barthlott, 2005).”
The Melting Himalayas: Cascading Effects of Climate Change on Water, Biodiversity, and Livelihoods (2009, background): “Climate also determines biodiversity, and the Greater Himalayas have much higher biodiversity values than the global average (Körner 2004); the eastern Himalayas have the highest plant diversity and richness (Xu & Wilkes 2004; Mutke & Barthlott 2005; Salick et al. 2006).”