Although the importance of edaphic factors and habitat structure for plant growth and survival is known, both are often neglected in favor of climatic drivers when investigating the spatial patterns of plant species and diversity. Yet, especially in mountain ecosystems with complex topography, missing edaphic and habitat components may be detrimental for a sound understanding of biodiversity distribution. Here, we compare the relative importance of climate, soil and land cover variables when predicting the distributions of 2,616 vascular plant species in the European Alps, representing approximately two‐thirds of all European flora. Using presence‐only data, we built point‐process models (PPMs) to relate species observations to different combinations of covariates. We evaluated the PPMs through block cross‐validations and assessed the independent contributions of climate, soil, and land cover covariates to predict plant species distributions using an innovative predictive partitioning approach. We found climate to be the most influential driver of spatial patterns in plant species with a relative influence of ~58.5% across all species, with decreasing importance from low to high elevations. Soil (~20.1%) and land cover (~21.4%), overall, were less influential than climate, but increased in importance along the elevation gradient. Furthermore, land cover showed strong local effects in lowlands, while the contribution of soil stabilized at mid‐elevations. The decreasing influence of climate with elevation is explained by increasing endemism, and the fact that climate becomes more homogeneous as habitat diversity declines at higher altitudes. In contrast, soil predictors were found to follow the opposite trend. Additionally, at low elevations, human‐mediated land cover effects appear to reduce the importance of climate predictors. We conclude that soil and land cover are, like climate, principal drivers of plant species distribution in the European Alps. While disentangling their effects remains a challenge, future studies can benefit markedly by including soil and land cover effects when predicting species distributions.

中文翻译：

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气候，土壤和土地覆盖对欧洲阿尔卑斯山植物物种分布的影响

尽管已知营养因子和栖息地结构对于植物生长和存活的重要性，但在调查植物物种和多样性的空间格局时，两者往往被气候驱动因素所忽视。但是，特别是在地形复杂的山区生态系统中，缺少的水生和栖息地成分可能不利于对生物多样性分布的正确理解。在这里，我们在预测欧洲阿尔卑斯山2,616种维管植物物种分布时，比较了气候，土壤和土地覆盖变量的相对重要性，这些物种约占欧洲所有植物区系的三分之二。使用仅存在数据，我们建立了点过程模型（PPM），以将物种观察与协变量的不同组合相关联。我们通过块交叉验证评估了PPM，并使用创新的预测分区方法评估了气候，土壤和土地覆盖协变量对植物物种分布的独立贡献。我们发现气候是植物物种空间格局最有影响力的驱动因素，在所有物种中相对影响约为58.5％，重要性从低到高逐渐降低。总体而言，土壤（〜20.1％）和土地覆盖（〜21.4％）的影响力不及气候，但重要性随着海拔梯度的增加而增加。此外，土地覆盖在低地上表现出强烈的局部影响，而土壤的贡献在中海拔时稳定下来。气候的影响随着海拔的升高而减少，这可以通过地方性流行的增加来解释，并且随着栖息地多样性在高海拔地区下降，气候变得更加均匀。相反，发现土壤预测因子遵循相反的趋势。此外，在低海拔地区，人为介导的土地覆盖效应似乎降低了气候预报器的重要性。我们得出的结论是，像气候一样，土壤和土地覆盖是欧洲阿尔卑斯山植物物种分布的主要驱动力。尽管消除它们的影响仍然是一个挑战，但未来的研究可以通过在预测物种分布时包括土壤和土地覆盖的影响而显着受益。例如气候，是欧洲阿尔卑斯山植物物种分布的主要驱动力。尽管消除它们的影响仍然是一个挑战，但未来的研究可以通过在预测物种分布时包括土壤和土地覆盖的影响而显着受益。例如气候，是欧洲阿尔卑斯山植物物种分布的主要驱动力。尽管消除它们的影响仍然是一个挑战，但未来的研究可以通过在预测物种分布时包括土壤和土地覆盖的影响而显着受益。