Influence of elevation on bioregionalisation: A case study of the Sino-Himalayan flora

Aim: Elevation is an important factor that influences bioregionalisation in mountainous areas, but its effects are not well known. Taking the Sino-Himalayan flora as a case, we aimed to test the effect of elevation on bioregionalisation and provide a regionalisation scheme of the Sino-Himalayan flora.

Location: The Sino-Himalaya (East Himalaya, the Hengduan Mountains and the Yunnan Plateau in China).

Taxon: Angiosperms.

Methods: We compiled distribution data and elevation ranges of angiosperms in the Sino-Himalaya and adjacent areas and reconstructed a species-level phylogenetic tree of 19,313 angiosperm species. The area was divided into 398 grid cells, each 1 × 1°. Nine datasets of different elevation ranges were then used to delineate the flora of the Sino-Himalaya and adjacent areas using the phylogenetic dissimilarity approach.

Results: A comparison of nine regionalisation schemes of the Sino-Himalayan flora based on different elevation range datasets revealed that more...