Foundation species across a latitudinal gradient in China

Area of Science:

• Forest Ecology
• Plant Community Dynamics
• Biodiversity Research

Background:

• Foundation species are critical for structuring forest ecosystems but are difficult to identify.
• Long-term observations and experiments are often required, limiting broad-scale identification.
• Statistical criteria offer a potential alternative for identifying these key species.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify candidate foundation woody plant species in Chinese forests using statistical criteria.
• To test the hypothesis that foundation species are more prevalent in temperate forests than in tropical or boreal forests.
• To compare findings with North American data to suggest potential foundation genera for Northern Hemisphere forests.

Main Methods:

• Utilized statistical criteria, including outliers from size-frequency distributions.
• Assessed scale-dependent effects on alpha diversity (negative) and beta diversity (positive).
• Analyzed data from 12 large forest-dynamics plots across China, spanning diverse latitudes.

Main Results:

• Identified candidate foundation species, with temperate plots yielding significantly more species than (sub)tropical plots.
• The genus Acer, particularly Acer ukurunduense and Acer barbinerve, emerged as strong candidates under stringent criteria.
• Foundation species' basal area showed negative associations with co-occurring species diversity at finer spatial scales (5-10m) and positive associations with community dissimilarity at 5m.

Conclusions:

• Statistical criteria effectively identified candidate foundation species in Chinese forests.
• Results support the hypothesis that foundation species are more frequent in mid-latitude temperate forests.
• The genus Acer warrants further investigation as a significant foundation tree genus in Northern Hemisphere forests.