Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

The Moore Center for Science at Conservation International is one of the world’s premier conservation research institutes, producing and applying groundbreaking and policy-relevant research to help decision-makers protect nature. To date, Conservation International has published more than 1,100 peer-reviewed articles, many in leading journals including Science, Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

On average, each of our scientific papers is cited more than 45 times by other scholars — a rate exceeding that of any other U.S. conservation organization as well as leading universities.

Here is an archive of our most recent research.

Spatial scale changes the relationship between beta diversity, species richness and latitude

Rachakonda Sreekar, Masatoshi Katabuchi, Akihiro Nakamura, Richard T. Corlett, J. W. Ferry Slik, Christine Fletcher, Fangliang He, George D. Weiblen, Guochun Shen, Han Xu, I-Fang Sun, Ke Cao, Keping Ma, Li-Wan Chang, Min Cao, Mingxi Jiang, I. A. U. Nimal Gunatilleke, Perry Ong, Sandra Yap, C. V. Savitri Gunatilleke, Vojtech Novotny, Warren Y. Brockelman, Wusheng Xiang, Xiangcheng Mi, Xiankun Li, Xihua Wang, Xiujuan Qiao, Yide Li, Sylvester Tan, Richard Condit, Rhett D. Harrison, Lian Pin Koh

Royal Society Open Science, 5, 181168

September 19, 2018

The relationship between β-diversity and latitude still remains to be a core question in ecology because of the lack of consensus between studies. One hypothesis for the lack of consensus between studies is that spatial scale changes the relationship between latitude and β-diversity. Here, we test this hypothesis using tree data from 15 large-scale forest plots (greater than or equal to 15 ha, diameter at breast height ≥ 1 cm) across a latitudinal gradient (3–30 ^o ) in the Asia-Pacific region. We found that the observed β-diversity decreased with increasing latitude when sampling local tree communities at small spatial scale (grain size ≤0.1 ha), but the observed β-diversity did not change with latitude when sampling at large spatial scales (greater than or equal to 0.25 ha). Differences in latitudinal β-diversity gradients across spatial scales were caused by pooled species richness (γ-diversity), which influenced observed β-diversity values at small spatial scales, but not at large spatial scales. Therefore, spatial scale changes the relationship between β-diversity, γ-diversity and latitude, and improving sample representativeness avoids the γ-dependence of β-diversity.

CITATION

Sreekar, R., Katabuchi, M., Nakamura, A., Corlett, R. T., Slik, J. W. F., Fletcher, C., … Koh, L. P. (2018). Spatial scale changes the relationship between beta diversity, species richness and latitude. Royal Society Open Science, 5(9), 181168. doi:10.1098/rsos.181168