Lingzhao Tan1, Chunyu Fan1, Xiuhai Zhao1*, Chunyu Zhang1*
1 Research Center of Forest Management Engineering of State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing Forestry University, No. 35 Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, People’s Republic of China
  1. mail addresses: tanlingzhao@163.com (L.Z. Tan), bfufcy@163.com (C.Y. Fan), zhaoxh@bjfu.edu.cn (X.H. Zhao), zcy_0520@163.com (C.Y. Zhang)
Running title: Hierarchical ecological effect on β-diversity
Keywords: hierarchical partitioning, environmental filtering, spatial aggregation, beta diversity, null model, scale dependency
The type of article: Letters
The number of words: Abstract-147; Main text-3900.
The number of reference: 48
The number of figures: 5. The number of tables: 4.
* Co-Corresponding authors. E-mail: zhaoxh@bjfu.edu.cn; zcy_0520@163.com; TEL: +86-10-62337605; Fax numbers: +86-10-62337605
Postal address for correspondence author: Forest College in Beijing Forestry University, No.35 Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, Beijing, P.R.China, 100083
Authorship: Zhang and Zhao provided data. Tan and Fan performed modeling work and analyzed output data. Tan wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors contributed substantially to revisions.
Abstract: Species composition of communities are firstly affected by environmental filtering where species are progressively selected from the available species pool, and then by spatial aggregation which result in specific spatial organizations. However, the hierarchical effects of these processes across spatial scales are poorly understood. Using dataset of forest plots in northeastern China, we quantified the effects of environmental filtering at region-zone, zone-area, area-district, district-plot scales, and spatial aggregation at within-plot scale on β-diversity along latitudes. We showed that the patterns of β-diversity was mainly dominated by the processes at the region-zone, district-plot, and within-plot scales.We also showed that environmental filtering at the broader scales had stronger effects at higher latitudes, while at the finer scales only at lower latitudes. The effects of spatial aggregation were more prominent at lower latitudes. We highlight that the scale-dependency of the ecological processes needs to be fully considered in future studies.
Keywords: hierarchical partitioning, environmental filtering, spatial aggregation, beta diversity, null model