Patterns of phylogenetic diversity and
phylogenetic beta diversity have long been an intriguing field in
biodiversity studies. I analysed and assessed the relative importance
of environmental factors and geographical distance governingthe plant phylogenetic patterns and species assembly (Faith's PD, Pybus's Gamma statistic, NRI, NTI, Phylosor) over different spatial scales in China.
Point pattern analysis of forest plots
Stochastic process has been known playing
important roles in community assembly. I used the Homogenetic Poisson
Process, Heterogenetic Poisson Process, Heterogenetic Thomas Process,
Homogenetic Thomas Process to quantify the relative importance of
stochastic process and niche based process. These stochastic
processes simulates complete randomness or taking dispersal
limitation/topographic variation into account.
Niche Evolution
In a macroecological point of view, each
species has its own niche. By taking the phylogenetic relationship of
the taxa into account, one is able to map the niche of the historical
nodes in the phylogenetic tree, to reveal the evolution of the niche
during the speciation. To characterize the niche of each species over
large scales, I used the Maxent to predict the suitability for each
existing species, and use maximum likelihood/parsimony to reconstruct
the process of niche evolution.