Biodiversity Patterns and Continental Insularity in the Tropical High Andes

• Published in: Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research
• Main Authors: Anthelme, Fabien, Jacobsen, Dean, Macek, Petr, Meneses, Rosa, Moret, Pierre, Beck, Stephan, Dangles, Olivier, O.
• Other Authors: Botanique et Modélisation de l'Architecture des Plantes et des Végétations (UMR AMAP), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud ), Freshwater Biological Laboratory, Biology Department, University of Copenhagen = Københavns Universitet (UCPH), Travaux et recherches archéologiques sur les cultures, les espaces et les sociétés (TRACES), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (UT2J), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (MCC)-Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (Inrap)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Herbario Nacional de Bolivia, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), INRA - Mathématiques et Informatique Appliquées (Unité MIAJ), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: High altitude environments; Ecology; Biodiversity; Climate Change; Andes; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; Antarctic and Alpine Research; Arctic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01987692; https://doi.org/10.1657/1938-4246-46.4.811

International audience Alpine areas of the tropical Andes constitute the largest of all tropical alpine regions worldwide. They experience a particularly harsh climate, and they are fragmented into tropical alpine islands at various spatial scales. These factors generate unique patterns of continental insularity, whose impacts on biodiversity remain to be examined precisely. By reviewing existing literature and by presenting unpublished data on beta-diversity and endemism for a wide array of taxonomic groups, we aimed at providing a clear, overall picture of the isolation-biodiversity relationship in the tropical alpine environments of the Andes. Our analyses showed that (1) taxa with better dispersal capacities and wider distributions (e.g., grasses and birds) were less restricted to alpine areas at local scale; (2) similarity among communities decreased with spatial distance between isolated alpine areas; and (3) endemism reached a peak in small alpine areas strongly isolated from main alpine islands. These results pinpoint continental insularity as a powerful driver of biodiversity in the tropical High Andes. A combination of human activities and warming is expected to increase the effects of continental insularity in the next decades, especially by amplifying the resistance of the lowland matrix that surrounds tropical alpine islands.