Abstract
The causes of the gradients in species richness remain contentious because of multiple competing hypotheses, significant knowledge gaps, and regional effects of environmental and historical factors on species pools. Coastal zones are subject to particular sets of environmental constraints, thus identifying the drivers of species richness therein should shed light on the regional gradients of species diversity. Here, we investigate the geographic patterns and drivers of plant diversity across coastal regions while allowing for pervasive sampling deficiencies. Based on 142708 records of flowering plant occurrences, we mapped species richness and estimated the level of knowledge across the coastal zone of Brazil. Based on inventory completeness, we used linear regression models to test the predictive power of environmental variables that represent different environmental hypotheses. Few cells (25%) were well-surveyed, reflecting little knowledge about the distribution and diversity of flowering plants on the highly-populated Brazilian coast. Still, we found support for the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis as the best explanation of the variation in species richness of flowering plants in this region. Soil properties and water constraints are also important factors. Although our work emphasises the paucity of information on plant diversity in tropical and human-dominated areas, we show that knowledge limitations should not curb our capability of addressing hypotheses about species diversity.
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Data availability
The list of species can be accessed in Online Resource 1, Table S3. Further data can be made available by the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgements
EVSO was financially supported by a doctoring stipend provided by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Finance Code 001) and Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa e à Inovação Tecnológica do Estado de Sergipe (FAPITEC). SFG has been supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq; Grants no. 303180/2016-1 and 451863/2019-4), and by CAPES and FAPITEC (Process no. 88881.157451/2017-01). DMCA and SFG are members of the INCT-EECBio (CNPq/FAPEG).
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EVSO, ML, and SFG designed the project; EVSO collected data. EVSO, DMCA, ML, and SFG performed the analyses. EVSO and SFG led the writing process, with contributions of DMCA and ML. All authors discussed the results and approved the final version.
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Oliveira, E.V.S., Alves, D.M.C., Landim, M.F. et al. Sampling effort and the drivers of plant species richness in the Brazilian coastal regions. Oecologia 195, 163–171 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04805-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04805-7