Disparate recovery of phylogenetic diversity across taxa during tropical rainforest regeneration

Tropical forests are highly threatened habitats with the capacity to
recover after disturbance. We studied the recovery of phylogenetic
diversity (PD) and phylogenetic community structure in plants and animals
along a chronosequence of regeneration. We tested expected phylogenetic
patterns through succession, including a slower recovery of PD compared to
species richness (SR), increasing phylogenetic overdispersion with
regeneration time, and the role of environmental filtering and landscape
in promoting phylogenetic clustering and overdispersion. Phylogenetic
diversity recovery occurred after SR for only four out of eight groups.
Frugivorous and invertivorous birds showed increasing phylogenetic
overdispersion during succession, while frogs, bees, and trees instead
showed a tendency for increasing phylogenetic clustering. Phylogenetic
clustering was mainly related to environmental factors during early and
late regeneration. Phylogenetic overdispersion during late regeneration
was driven by the distance to old-growth forests only in frugivorous
birds. Our results show the complex nature of succession in tropical
forests, reflecting idiosyncratic patterns of PD and phylogenetic
community structure recovery after disturbance for plants and animals.
However, they also show that PD can recover relatively rapidly under
natural regeneration, suggesting that the studied communities are
resilient to disturbance from an evolutionary perspective.

热带森林是受高度威胁的生境类型，同时具备扰动后恢复的能力。本研究沿植被恢复的演替时间序列（chronosequence），探究了动植物的系统发育多样性（phylogenetic diversity, PD）与系统发育群落结构的恢复过程。我们检验了演替过程中预期的系统发育模式，包括系统发育多样性的恢复速率慢于物种丰富度（species richness, SR）、随恢复时间增长系统发育离散程度逐渐升高，以及环境过滤与景观因子在推动系统发育聚集与离散过程中的作用。仅8个类群中的4个类群，其系统发育多样性的恢复晚于物种丰富度。食果鸟类与食虫鸟类在演替过程中系统发育离散程度逐渐升高，而蛙类、蜂类与树木则呈现出系统发育聚集程度不断上升的趋势。系统发育聚集现象主要与恢复早期与晚期的环境因子相关。仅在食果鸟类中，恢复后期的系统发育离散程度由其与原始老龄林的距离所驱动。本研究结果揭示了热带森林演替的复杂本质，反映了动植物在扰动后系统发育多样性与系统发育群落结构恢复的特异性模式。但同时，研究结果也表明，在自然恢复过程中系统发育多样性可实现相对快速的恢复，这意味着从演化视角来看，本次研究涉及的群落具备抵御扰动的恢复力。