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  • Elevational sensitivity in an Asian 'hotspot': moth diversity across elevational gradients in tropical, sub-tropical and sub-alpine China

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    Author(s)
    Ashton, LAI
    Nakamura, A
    Burwell, CJ
    Tang, Y
    Cao, M
    Whitaker, T
    Sun, Z
    Huang, H
    Kitching, RL
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Kitching, Roger L.
    Nakamura, Aki
    Ashton, Louise A.
    Burwell, Christopher J.
    Year published
    2016
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    Abstract
    South-western China is widely acknowledged as a biodiversity ‘hotspot’: there are high levels of diversity and endemism, and many environments are under significant anthropogenic threats not least climate warming. Here, we explore diversity and compare response patterns of moth assemblages among three elevational gradients established within different climatic bioregions - tropical rain forest, sub-tropical evergreen broad-leaved forest and sub-alpine coniferous forest in Yunnan Province, China. We hypothesised that tropical assemblages would be more elevationally stratified than temperate assemblages, and tropical species ...
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    South-western China is widely acknowledged as a biodiversity ‘hotspot’: there are high levels of diversity and endemism, and many environments are under significant anthropogenic threats not least climate warming. Here, we explore diversity and compare response patterns of moth assemblages among three elevational gradients established within different climatic bioregions - tropical rain forest, sub-tropical evergreen broad-leaved forest and sub-alpine coniferous forest in Yunnan Province, China. We hypothesised that tropical assemblages would be more elevationally stratified than temperate assemblages, and tropical species would be more elevationally restricted than those in the temperate zone. Contrary to our hypothesis, the moth fauna was more sensitive to elevational differences within the temperate transect, followed by sub-tropical and tropical transects. Moths in the cooler and more seasonal temperate sub-alpine gradient showed stronger elevation-decay beta diversity patterns, and more species were restricted to particular elevational ranges. Our study suggests that moth assemblages are under threat from future climate change and sub-alpine rather than tropical faunas may be the most sensitive to climate change. These results improve our understanding of China’s biodiversity and can be used to monitor future changes to herbivore assemblages in a ‘hotspot’ of biodiversity.
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    Journal Title
    Scientific Reports
    Volume
    6
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1038/srep26513
    Copyright Statement
    © The Author(s). 2016 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
    Subject
    Ecology not elsewhere classified
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/100660
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    • Journal articles

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