Abstract Detail

Biogeography

Nagalingum, Nathalie [1], Knerr, Nunzio [2], Laffan, Shawn [3], Thornhill, Andrew [2], Gonzalez-Orozco, Carlos [4], Miller, Joe [2], Mishler, Brent [5].

Continental scale patterns and predictors of fern diversity.

Because ferns have a wide range of habitat preferences and are widely distributed, they are an ideal group for understanding how diversity is distributed. Most of our knowledge of fern distributions derives from transects, and overall there are few synthetic studies over large regions. In this study, patterns of fern diversity were assessed for the entire continent of Australia using standard taxon-based metrics as well as phylogenetic indices. Australia is used as the study area because: the continent encompasses a broad range of habitat types, there is a completed floristic treatment of the ferns that has resulted in a standardized taxonomy across all states, and distributional data of specimens in all herbaria in the country has been digitized. After cleaning, the distributional data consisted of 63,230 records; in addition an associated three molecular marker phylogeny of all 89 fern genera was reconstructed. The four measures of diversity that were calculated are species richness, genus richness, phylogenetic diversity, and relative phylogenetic diversity. The phylogenetic indices require a phylogeny together with the distributional data, whereas the other diversity indices require distributional data only. To further understand the patterns of diversity, all of the indices were compared to 11 environmental variables (encompassing solar radiation, temperature, precipitation, topography and soil properties) in a spatial statistic framework.

Broader Impacts:

1 - Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, National Herbarium of New South Wales, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney, NSW, 2000, Australia
2 - Centre For Australian National Biodiversity Research, GPO Box 1600, Canberra, N/A, 2601, Australia
3 - University of New South Wales, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia
4 - University of Canberra, Institute for Applied Ecology/CRN, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia
5 - University of California, Berkeley, University & Jepson Herbaria, and Dept. of Integrative Biology, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2465, USA

Keywords:
ferns
Phylogenetic diversity
biodiversity hotspot
herbarium
climate.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Topics
Session: 38
Location: Marlborough A/Riverside Hilton
Date: Wednesday, July 31st, 2013
Time: 10:45 AM
Number: 38009
Abstract ID:858
Candidate for Awards:None