Understanding how forest fragment size, topography, forest structure, and soil properties affect plant diversity remains a crucial question in conservation biology, with ferns often being ...understudied. To address this knowledge gap, we surveyed the abundance, species richness, and composition of ferns in a tropical landscape in south China using 75 sites in 42 forest fragments. We then used a multi-model inference approach to assess whether fern abundance, richness, and composition were better explained by (a) fragment size, (b) topography (slope, aspect), (c) forest structure (tree basal area, light availability), or (d) soil properties (pH, Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Calcium, Magnesium, water availability, and proportion of clay, silt, and sand). We also conducted a nestedness analysis to examine whether the composition of the fern communities in smaller fragments (0.4–1 km²) differed or represented a subset of the communities found in larger fragments (e.g., >10 km²). We found that (a) fern abundance was mostly influenced by soil properties, slope, and aspect, (b) fern species richness by soil properties and slope, and (c) fern species composition by forest structure, specifically, tree basal area. We also found that fern species composition was not nested in the landscape, suggesting that smaller forest fragments had different communities from larger fragments. Our results suggest also that soil properties play an important role in maintaining fern abundance and diversity and therefore protecting soil can help conserve ferns in fragmented landscapes.
Local and landscape-scale agricultural intensification is a major driver of global biodiversity loss. Controversially discussed solutions include wildlife-friendly farming or combining high-intensity ...farming with land-sparing for nature. Here, we integrate biodiversity and crop productivity data for smallholder cacao in Indonesia to exemplify for tropical agroforests that there is little relationship between yield and biodiversity under current management, opening substantial opportunities for wildlife-friendly management. Species richness of trees, fungi, invertebrates, and vertebrates did not decrease with yield. Moderate shade, adequate labor, and input level can be combined with a complex habitat structure to provide high biodiversity as well as high yields. Although livelihood impacts are held up as a major obstacle for wildlife-friendly farming in the tropics, our results suggest that in some situations, agroforests can be designed to optimize both biodiversity and crop production benefits without adding pressure to convert natural habitat to farmland.
Societal Impact Statement
Comprehensive Red List assessments act as valuable resources for informing protected area designations, national protected species legislation and action strategies, and ...international biodiversity agreements, yet they are lacking for many plant families. Magnoliaceae is one of the most comprehensively assessed families, as coordinated efforts have taken place since 2007 to assess all species in the family. Due to the many efforts to assess these species, comparisons of the assessments and ex situ data over time and an investigation of the most recent (2021) information are essential to guiding the development of national, regional, and global conservation strategies for Magnoliaceae species in a time of increased global collaboration between conservation organizations.
Comprehensive Red List assessments act as valuable resources for informing protected area designations, national protected species legislation and action strategies, and international biodiversity agreements, yet they are lacking for many plant families. Magnoliaceae is one of the most comprehensively assessed families, as coordinated efforts have taken place since 2007 to assess all species in the family. Due to the many efforts to assess these species, comparisons of the assessments and ex situ data over time and an investigation of the most recent (2021) information are essential to guiding the development of national, regional, and global conservation strategies for Magnoliaceae species in a time of increased global collaboration between conservation organizations.
Although tropical forests are renowned for their high plant diversity, to date there has been no global quantitative evaluation of the local species richness of terrestrial forest herbs in tropical ...forests. In this paper, richness and composition of terrestrial herb assemblages is compared in tropical forests of America, Africa and South East Asia. We established 86 non-continuous transects of 445 m each. Herb species richness was analysed and compared to six environmental parameters using minimal adequate regression models and simultaneous autoregressive models. At the global scale, we found a close relationship between herb species richness and temperature parameters, with no differences between continents. The subdivision into three main taxonomic groups (ferns, monocots, dicots) showed that each group has distinct relations to environmental factors and differences in richness between continents. Most of the 72 families found have pantropical distributions but 12, 11, and 16 families were significantly over-represented in America, Africa, and Asia, respectively. Although total species richness was closely related to climatic factors, ferns, monocots and dicots were represented by distinct sets of families with varying species richness on each continent. Which species are found at a given site may thus reflect group-specific evolutionary and historical factors.
The genus
Scherer 1974 consists of very small, soil-dwelling flea beetles in South, Southeast and East Asia. Due to their diminutive size and morphological similarities, very little is known about ...their ecology and taxonomical diversity. It is likely that further studies will reveal this genus to be much more speciose than the 30 species currently recognised.
A new species of
from Brunei Darussalam is described,
Otani et al., sp. nov. This is the second species of this genus recorded from Ulu Temburong National Park.
During citizen-science expeditions to the Ulu Temburong National Park, Brunei, several individuals were collected of a semi-slug species of the genus
that, based on morphology and in-the-field ...DNA-barcoding, was found to be an undescribed species.
In this paper, we describe
Wu, Ezzwan & Hamdani, n. sp., after field centre supervisor Md Salleh Abdullah Bat. We provide details on the external and internal reproductive morphology, the shell and the ecology of the type locality, as well as a diagnosis comparing it with related species. DNA barcodes were generated for five individuals and used for a phylogenetic reconstruction.
sp. n. and
Schilthuizen et al., 2019 so far are the only Bornean species of the genus that live in lowland forest; other species are found in montane forests.
Terrestrial Caenogastropoda form an important but threatened component of the Borneo tropical rainforest malacofauna, where the group is nearly as rich in species as the Stylommatophora. They are, ...however, more sensitive to drought, temperature extremes and forest degradation.
On a field course at Kuala Belalong Field Studies Centre in Brunei Darussalam (Borneo), a new caenogastropod species, belonging to the genus
, was discovered by the course participants. The participants decided to name the species
n. sp., in honour of the climate change activist Greta Thunberg, as caenogastropod land snails, such as this species, are likely to suffer because of climate change.
Terrestrial and epiphytic herbaceous forest species have different ecological qualities and leaf stoichiometry. Ferns represent a great component of herbaceous forest species in tropical regions with ...different lifeforms and evolutionary histories. However, little is known about the differences in leaf stoichiometry between the lifeforms. We studied the concentrations of leaf elements (N, P, K, Ca and Mg) between lifeforms (16 terrestrial, 4 epiphytic) and evolutionary clades (12 polypods, 8 non-polypods). The leaves were collected from the field, acid-digested and analyzed for nutrient elements. Results show that epiphytic species had a higher concentration of most leaf elements. Epiphytes had a lower N:P ratio compared with terrestrial ones. This suggests that epiphytes were nutrient-limited, relying on stochastic elements supply compared to terrestrial species which have a constant supply. Epiphytes tend to accumulate higher element concentration beyond their immediate metabolic needs, defined as luxury consumption. Epiphytes showed a higher concentration of P and Ca for their necessity of coping with severe habitat conditions and sclerophyll leaves. We found that modern polypod and archaic non-polypod ferns are significant stoichiometry different for K. The results contribute to the context of the poorly studied stoichiometry of tropical Asian fern species and their ecophysiology.
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