Island area and remoteness shape plant and soil bacterial diversity through land use and biological invasion

Biodiversity is declining dramatically due to human-driven land use change and biological invasion, but our knowledge of how such drivers influence plant and heterotroph diversity on island ecosystems remains limited. Historically island biogeography theory has focused solely on the direct effects of island size and remoteness on biodiversity, but these factors can also indirectly affect species gain and/or loss by impacting land use change and biological invasion. We built the structural equation model to explore the direct effects of island size and remoteness, and indirect effects of these factors via land use intensity and pinewood nematode invasion, on the diversity of plants and soil bacteria across 37 continental shelf islands in the largest land-bridge archipelago in eastern China.
As expected we found that increasing island area directly promoted plant diversity. However, land use intensity increased with island area which also promoted plant diversity, and loss of pine forest ..., All the data are measured or collected from the 37 islands that vary in area, remoteness, and land use intensity in the Zhoushan Archipelago. The field measurements were permitted by the local government.,