Abstract Detail

Ecological Section

Lin, Huan-Yu [1], Tseng, Yu-Hsin [2], Hu, Jer-Ming [3].

Examining dioecy and the associated ecological correlates in the flora of Taiwan based on an integrated plant distribution database.

The presence of dioecy is known to be variable amount local flora, and is significantly high in oceanic islands like Hawaii and New Zealand. In our previous survey, the percentage of dioecy in the flora of Taiwan is around 8%, but also variable among different vegetation types in Taiwan. In order to elucidate the possible associated ecological attributes with dioecy in Taiwan in details, we utilized a geo-referenced database compiled for the flora of Taiwan, based on the plant distribution information from major herbaria and biological resource inventory projects, with more than one million data points. Taiwan is a continental island on the Tropic of East Asia. More than 73% of the land is occupied by hills and mountains, and the central ridge of Taiwan is close to 4,000 m. The dynamic environment creates diverse topography and habitats harboring over 4,200 vascular plant species, in which 1,052 of them (22.9%) are endemic to Taiwan. The proportions of sex expression systems (dioecy, monoecy, hermaphrodite) were calculated within the 5x5 km grids and the results showed strong nonhomogeneous patterning among the grids. An RDA analysis was conducted for the correlations between sex expression systems and several ecological attributes. The results showed that dioecy is strongly correlated with the vegetation coverage, woodiness, and species richness. The percentage of dioecy is high (>13%) in the middle altitude (300-2700 m), compared to the lowland (0-300 m, 7%), and high altitude (2700-3900 m, 1-6%) of Taiwan. The lowland area of Taiwan is largely occupied or managed for human uses, thus the plant composition is dominant by weeds and pioneer species, including members from Poaceae, Asteraceae, and Fabaceae, in which the dioecy is uncommon. Therefore the percentage of dioecy should be higher than our previous estimates that used the whole flora information of Taiwan. Our results suggested that the plant distribution data could be a powerful tool to access the patterning and correlations of the sex expression systems with ecological attributes.

1 - Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, Taipei Botanical Garden, No.53, Nan-Hai Road, Taipei, 10066, Taiwan
2 - National Taiwan University, Institute Of Ecology And Evolutionary Biology, Rm1227 Life Science Building, 1 Sec 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei, 106, Taiwan
3 - National Taiwan University, Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rm1227 Life Science Building, 1 Sec 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan

Keywords:
dioecy
Taiwan
database
grid.

Presentation Type: Poster:Posters for Sections
Session: P
Location: Hall D/The Shaw Conference Centre
Date: Monday, July 27th, 2015
Time: 5:30 PM
Number: PEC009
Abstract ID:1030
Candidate for Awards:Ecological Section Best Graduate Student Poster