ArticlePlant diversity2025
Environmental drivers of herbaceous plant diversity in the understory community of a warm-temperate forest.
Article in Plant diversity, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Plant community responses to climate change in the Zayandeh-Rud Basin, Iran: Does woody plant encroachment follow global patterns?BMC ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Influence of divergent sampling intensity across plant growth forms on estimating elevational richness patterns and their drivers.Plant diversity · 2026Article
- Diversity patterns of medicinal plants along elevational gradients across forest layers in Meihua Mountains, Fujian.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Genomic Insights Into Local Adaptation Across Heterogeneous Understory Habitats and Climate Change Vulnerability.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Canopy-Mediated Shifts in Grassland Diversity and Heterogeneity: A Power Law Approach from China's Loess Plateau.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal dominance on taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity across vertical strata in a subtropical forest.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
Herbaceous plants are an essential component of forest diversity and driver of ecosystem processes. However, because the growth forms and life-history strategies of herbaceous plants differ from those of woody plants, it is unclear whether the mechanisms that drive patterns plant diversity and community structure in these two plant groups are the same. In this study, we determined whether herb and woody plant communities have similar patterns and drivers of alpha- and beta-diversity. We compared species richness, distribution, and abundance of herbs to woody seedlings in a 20-ha Donglingshan warm-temperate forest (Donglingshan FDP), China. We also determined whether variation in patterns of species richness and composition are better explained by environmental or spatial variables. Herbaceous plants accounted for 72% of all species (81 herbaceous, 31 woody) recorded. Alpha- and beta-diversity were higher in herbs than in woody seedlings. Although alpha-diversity of herbs and woody seedlings was not correlated across the site, the local-site contributions to beta-diversity for herbs and woody seedlings were negatively correlated. Habitat type explained slightly more variation in herb community composition than in woody seedling composition, with the highest diversity in the low-elevation slope. Environmental variables explained the variation in species richness and composition more in herbaceous plants than in woody seedlings. Our results indicate that different mechanisms drive variation in the herb and woody seedling communities, with herbs exhibiting greater environmental sensitivity and habitat dependence. These findings contribute to the better understanding of herbaceous plant diversity and composition in forest communities.
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