New insights into the formation of biodiversity hotspots of the Kenyan flora

Aim: Kenya intersects with the biodiversity hotspots Eastern Afromontane, Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa, and Horn of Africa. This study aims to investigate the distribution pattern of plant diversity in the low latitude arid area influenced by climatic fluctuation and orogeny at long historical period, and explore the formation of beta diversity pattern in Kenya.
Location: Kenya, East Africa.
Taxon: Angiosperms.
Methods: We quantified patterns of turnover and nestedness components of phylogenetic beta diversity among neighbouring sites for angiosperm species by using a well-resolved phylogenetic tree and extensive distribution records from public database and a set of books. We applied clustering methods to do biota delineation based on the pairwise similarities among multiple sites, and used a random assembly null model to assess the effects of species abundance distribution on phylogenetic beta diversity.
Results: Phylogenetic turnover for the Kenyan flora showed a non-monotonic p...