Factors affecting distribution pattern of plants and arthropods in forest

1. Chen Y., Yang X., Yang Q., Li D., Long W., Luo W. 2014. Factors Affecting the
Distribution Pattern of Wild Plants with Extremely Small Populations in Hainan Island,
China. PLoS ONE, 9(5): e97751.

- Distribution pattern refers to the appearance frequency and species richness of the extremely
small populations.

-The species richness of plant species with extremely small populations decreased with the
increasing levels of road quality, agricultural activities, and surrounding population density, but
increased with increasing distance of population and road.

-We found that plant species with extremely small populations often lived in a fragmental
habitat.

- The appearance frequencies of all species were affected by the eight factors, with a
decreasing order of importance: altitude, land use type, distance between population and road,
road quality, slope aspect, surrounding population density, canopy density, and slope gradient.

- Our results showed that the species richness of extremely small populations was always
reduced by human activities

- we found that road quality made a decreasing richness of the extremely small populations.

- We, therefore, should take knowledge of how the external factors, such as the ecological
environment, land use type, roads, human activity, etc., affect the distribution of the extremely
small populations for the better protecting them in the future.

-Plant population is the most basic level of plant ecology, connecting plant individuals with
communities and ecosystems. The ecological patterns of a plant population are characterized
by its population dynamics, as well as the relationships between the population and the external
environments.

-Our findings have been demonstrated by the view that the main factors causing rare and
endangered plants susceptible to extinction are habitat destruction, plant overexploitation and
the ecological environment deterioration.

- Slope gradient can reflect the soil moisture and its nutrient condition.

2. Luo, Z., Ding, B., Mi, X., Yu, J. and Wu, Y. 2009. Distribution patterns of tree species in
an evergreen broadleaved forest in eastern China. Front. Biol. China, 4(4): 531538

Many ecologists have emphasized the significance of habitat heterogeneity for plant species
assembly in forest communities. (Luo et. al., 2009)
-The important processes structuring the community are likely to leave strong imprints on the
spatial distribution of species; thus, ecological processes can be inferred from the spatial
distribution.

-Shade-tolerant characteristics ensure that the seedling and sapling can grow well under the
canopy of mother trees.

-At a given scale of observation, it has been found that the aggregation pattern is more popular
than random and regular patterns in nature and is more popular than few other species
distributed in a regular way.

-Our result suggests that the density-dependent effect is more frequent in abundant populations,
which is consistent with studies in many other forests.

-Many other analyses have found that there are significant correlations between aggregation
and abundance.

NOTE: The analyses mentioned can refer to another study. Like this
http://ctfs.si.edu/Public/pdfs/LaFrankie_1997_JourVegeSci.pdf

-Environmental heterogeneity, which usually influences spatial patterns of trees on larger

scales, is an important process leading to the aggregation pattern.

-we can infer that the topography is very important for patterns of these species at large scales
(Luo et. al., 2009).

- An aggregated pattern may occur if seeds are randomly dispersed over a heterogeneous
environment, which makes germination and growth vary from site to site

-Adults might occupy the most favorable sites for the species, while juveniles are widely
dispersed (Condit et al., 2000).

-Although density dependence is not a process that strongly structures species distribution,
herbivores and plant pathogens have effects on loosing aggregation and excluding juveniles
away from adult trees.

-Pattern transitions from juveniles to adults of species as well as relationships between mother
trees and their offspring are complex, varying with scale and species. It suggests that multiple
mechanisms, especially environmental heterogeneity, dispersal limitation, and negative density-
dependence, control the spatial patterns of species and their dynamics.
- once the population has saturated the forest stand and reached stationary, the minimum
distance (or density-dependent effect) will maintain uniformity at all pattern scales. While in
growing and declining populations, this effect has little influence.

3. Basset, Y., Hammond, P.M., Barrios, H., Holloway, J.D. and Miller, S.E. (2003)
Arthropods of Tropical Forests: Spatio-Temporal Dynamics and Resource Use in the
Canopy. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Few resident arthropods species are to be found evenly distributed through any given tropical
forest at any one time. In addition, different life stages may occupy different parts of a forest,
and individuals too may move in response to temporal changes (daily rhythms, weather,
season) in their environment, or to fulfil varying needs (dispersal, mate-finding, etc.).

4. Lewis, O.T. and Basset, Y. (2007) Insect Conservation Biology. UK: Biddles Ltd, King's
Lynn.

-Tropical forests are characterized by extraordinarily high but poorly inventoried insect diversity
(perhaps 510 million species, with less than 1 million of them described), and by an absence of
basic biological and ecological information for all but a handful of non-pest species.

- Rates of tropical forest habitat degradation and destruction are higher than in almost any other
biome

- the potential loss of insect diversity in tropical forests through human actions in the coming
decades is enormous.

- most of the key ecosystem processes in which insects are involved (herbivory, parasitism,
pollination) occur largely in the canopy.

-Climate change remains a major unknown in the context of tropical insects,

but the response of tropical forest insects to climate change is of some significance.

5. Basset, Y., Cizek, L., Cunoud, P., Didham, R.K., Novotny, V., degaard, F., Roslin, T.,
Tishechkin, A.K., Schmidl, J., Winchester, N.N., Roubik, D.W., Aberlenc, H., Bail, J.,
Barrios, H., Bridle, J.R., Castao-Meneses, G., Corbara, B., Curletti, G., Rocha, W.D.,
Bakker, D.D., Delabie, J.H.C., Dejean, A., Fagan, L.L., Floren, A., Kitching, R.L., Medianero,
E., Oliveira, E.G., Orivel, J. Pollet, M., Rapp., M., Ribeiro, S.P., Roisin, Y., Schmidt, J.B.,
Srensen, L., Lewinsohn, T.M.m Leponcem M. 2015. Arthropod Distribution in a Tropical
Rainforest: Tackling a Four Dimensional Puzzle. PLoS ONE, 10(12): e0144110.

-Ecologists are often concerned with quantifying animal or plant distribution with regard to
historical factors, latitudinal or altitudinal gradients, geographic distance or seasonality.
-Niche-based explanations are (in principle) not necessarily incompatible with dispersal
limitation in an ecologically neutral habitat.

-Understanding the drivers of the spatio-temporal organization of communities at the scale of

the forest is essential to understanding and conserving tropical arthropod biodiversity.

-In lowland tropical rainforests, one of the obvious spatial gradients of species change (hereafter
referred to as dimension, so as not to assume the existence of an autocorrelated gradient
per se) is related to geographic distance, as tropical rainforests are notoriously heterogeneous
environments. Faunal changes in this horizontal dimension may be driven by multiple factors,
including forest dynamics, the presence of host-plants and their relatives for herbivores, soil
properties affecting the quality of host-plants for herbivores, distance from
forest edge, or even neutral processes that incorporate distance-decay of dispersal.

-It has long been known that faunal changes induced by seasonality can be significant in
aseasonal tropical climates.

-much better studied trees, the horizontal dimension had a stronger impact on the distribution of
trees than on arthropods, whereas the seasonal dimension had stronger effects on the
distribution of arthropods than on trees.

-The seasonal dimension and associated variables (rainfall, degree-days, radiation, different
categories of litterfall) also had strong effects on the distribution of arthropods at San Lorenzo,
as has been reported for many studies in tropical rainforests.

-The horizontal, vertical and seasonal dimensions all contribute significantly to the distribution
in space and time of arthropods in the San Lorenzo forest.

-The abundance of ants was higher in the litter and canopy than in other habitats and
significantly different among sites. This may reflect the sociality of these insects and
requirements for the establishment of colonies