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ARTICLE
Do Geographically Isolated Grasslands Follow the Principle of Island Biogeography in a Landscape Scale? Taking Poyang Lake Grassland as an Example
Shiqi Luo1,3, Wenbo Chen2,3,*, Lei He4, Qiongbing Xiong1,3
1
College of Land Resources and Environment, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, 330045, China
2
East China University of Technology, Nanchang, 330032, China
3
The Key Laboratory of Landscape and Environment, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, 330045, China
4
School of Tourism and Urban Management, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, 330013, China
* Corresponding Author: Wenbo Chen. Email:
(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Plant–Environment Interactions)
Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2023, 92(2), 455-470. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2022.022466
Received 11 March 2022; Accepted 13 June 2022; Issue published 12 October 2022
Abstract
As one of the basic theories of biodiversity conservation, island biogeography has been widely accepted in the past
decades. Originally, island biogeography was put forward and applied in oceanic environments. But later on, it
was found out that the application was not only limited to oceanic islands, but also in terrestrial environments
with relatively isolated conditions. In terms of biodiversity level, island biogeography generally focuses on a small
scale, such as species diversity and genetic diversity. The studies of biodiversity on a large-scale based on island
biogeography, such as ecosystem and landscape scales, were seldomly conducted. Taking Poyang Lake, the largest
fresh water lake in China as case study area, 30 grasslands were randomly selected to study whether island biogeography can be applied to grasslands at a landscape level from three island attributes (area, distance and shape),
and the most important ecological variable (flooding) in Poyang Lake. The results showed that in general, grasslands have the property of an island, and follow the basic principle of island biogeography. We found the area and
flooding duration were the two most important determinants of landscape diversity. There was a significant positive correlation between the grassland area and the landscape diversity, which could be well expressed by logarithmic function model (R
2 = 0.73). There was a negative correlation between flooding duration and landscape
diversity, which could be described by an inverse model (R
2 = 0.206). The distance to mainland and the shape
of grassland were correlated with landscape diversity, but the fitting result of the models was not as good as
expected. The possible reason could be that Poyang Lake is a seasonal lake, the water level varies with hydrological
conditions, so that the grasslands are not strongly isolated and their shape is not stable enough required by island
biogeography. Furthermore, it indicates that besides area, distance and shape attributes, flooding strongly affects
the biodiversity of grassland vegetation, and should not be ignored when applying island biogeography theory to
Poyang Lake. This study is expected to be a supplement for island biogeography in terrestrial environments, and
the results are expected to benefit for the biodiversity conservation in Poyang Lake.
Keywords
Cite This Article
Luo, S., Chen, W., He, L., Xiong, Q. (2023). Do Geographically Isolated Grasslands Follow the Principle of Island Biogeography in a Landscape Scale? Taking Poyang Lake Grassland as an Example.
Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany, 92(2), 455–470.