中国森林植物群落谱系多样性、功能多样性格局与群落构建

Mechanism of community assembly is one of the central issues in ecology. Biodiversity is a result of joint effect of evolutionary history, environmental filtering, species interaction and stochastic processes. However the effects of these processes on community assembly are scale- and regional- dependent. Biodiversity in a community contains three facets: taxonoimic diversity, phylogenetic diversity and functional diversity. Exploring the relationship among these three diversities, and comparing their patterns along geographical and environmental gradients provide a valid way for studying mechanisms of community assembly. In previous studies, we studied the large scale patterns of species (α- and β-) diversity in China's forests, and explored the relative importance of environmental filtering and dispersal limitation in regulate forest and grassland communities in China. We collected massive plot data during these studies. In this proposed project, by collecting samples across China, we first build database of functional traits and phylogenetic tree for all tree species recorded in our plots, and then study relationship among taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity, and explore the mechanisms and the regional differences of community assembly of China's forests. The aims of the project is to explore the relative importance of difference processes in regulating community assemblages and the regional differences, and explore the mechanisms of species co-existence and biodiversity maintainence at large scale, by integrating evolutionary biology, functional ecology and community ecology.

群落构建是生态学研究的核心问题，生物多样性是进化历史、环境筛选、种间相互作用及随机过程等生态过程综合作用的产物，这些过程对群落构建的作用具有尺度依赖和区域差异。群落多样性可划分为分类(物种)多样性、谱系多样性与功能多样性；比较三者之间的关系及其分布格局，对于探讨不同生态过程对群落构建影响的区域分异具有重要的意义。申请人在前期工作中系统分析了我国森林物种(α-和β-)多样性的分布格局，探讨了环境筛选和扩散限制对我国主要植物群落的相对影响，积累了大量群落样方。本申请项目拟充分利用这些资料，进一步对我国森林树种进行采样，构建其功能性状数据库和系统进化树，研究我国森林物种多样性、功能多样性及谱系多样性的关系，探讨我国森林植物群落构建机制及其区域分异。其科学意义在于：融合进化生物学、功能性状与群落生态学，分析不同机制对群落构建的影响及其区域分异，从宏观层面探讨群落物种共存与生物多样性维持的机制。