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A globally consistent richness-climate relationship for angiosperms.

Anthony P Francis1, David J Currie

  • 1Ottawa Carleton Institute of Biology, University of Ottawa, PO Box 450 Station A, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada.

The American Naturalist
|June 5, 2003
PubMed
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Global climate patterns strongly predict plant species richness worldwide. This finding holds true across diverse plant groups and regions, suggesting climate is a primary driver of biodiversity.

Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Biodiversity Science
  • Biogeography

Background:

  • Species richness, a key biodiversity metric, exhibits significant spatial variation.
  • Previous research suggested regional differences in richness-climate relationships.
  • The existence of a globally consistent richness-climate relationship remained uncertain.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate global patterns of angiosperm (flowering plant) species and family richness in relation to climate.
  • To determine if richness-climate relationships are consistent across different geographic regions and plant assemblages.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of global angiosperm species and family richness data.
  • Statistical modeling relating richness to climatic variables such as mean annual temperature, annual water deficit, and potential evapotranspiration.

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Main Results:

  • Globally consistent and strong relationships were found between angiosperm richness and climate variables.
  • Models using mean annual temperature and annual water deficit, or potential evapotranspiration and water deficit, explained over 80% of the spatial variance in richness.
  • These climate-driven patterns were independent of regional evolutionary histories and plant functional groups.

Conclusions:

  • Climate is a dominant factor shaping global patterns of angiosperm species richness at broad spatial scales.
  • Other factors like evolutionary history or soil nutrients appear to have minor roles or are strongly correlated with climate.
  • Future hypotheses on biodiversity drivers must account for these strong global climate-richness correlations.