Testing of Drivers for Plant Species Diversity
“Results: We found remarkably consistent patterns in which AET and MDE failed to offer a good explanation for species richness. WED was the best model when all islands were analyzed simultaneously; however, analyses on separate islands revealed that the precipitation term was not significant or negatively related to richness on five of the seven islands. The second-best model was NPP, whereas the best single predictor of richness was the polynomial expression of PET. The spatial variables, area, and the autocorrelated masl were strongly correlated with the residuals of the weak models. // Conclusions: Based on these observations, WED and NPP are superior in explaining richness on mountainous islands, whereas MDE and AET have low explanatory power. Precipitation has a negative correlation with species richness in five out of seven islands.” in Journal of Vegetational Science