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Investigating the Turnover in Plant Species Biodiversity on Gypsum Soil Outcrops

Osterday, Lilly R
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1683294879212467

Abstract Details

2023, Bachelor of Science (BS), Ohio University, Environmental and Plant Biology.
Gypsum soils have unique chemical properties that restrict edaphic communities of plants to them. Soils containing high levels of gypsum occur in patchy outcrops that form island chains throughout the southwestern deserts in North America. Island biogeography theory suggests that island communities should have higher species turnover than mainland communities due to isolation limiting dispersal events that would otherwise homogenize them. We tested the hypothesis that because of their discontinuous, island distributions, gypsum outcrops would have greater differences in species composition (beta diversity) than comparable populations from the surrounding non-gypsum floral communities. This result would demonstrate that the community assemblage of gypsum is governed by the same processes that lead to high species turnover in insular systems. We analyzed species presence/absence data collected from 148 gypsum sites and 148 paired nearby non-gypsum sites and compared the estimated beta diversity values between them using a paired t-test. We then ran a linear regression to determine whether beta diversity is influenced by the distance between sites. Beta diversity was not significantly different between gypsum outcrops and the surrounding non-gypsum communities. Both soil types had high beta diversity indicating low levels of similarity between sites whether the community was on or off gypsum. As expected, distance between the sites significantly influenced the beta diversity among non-gypsum sites and the beta diversity among gypsum outcrops. As distance increased, the differences in species composition increased. Looking at the coefficient of determination, the results show that the variance in beta diversity among the non-gypsum communities is more explained by distance than the variance in beta diversity among the gypsum Finding that both the gypsum outcrops and the non-gypsum sites are equal in dissimilarity from others shows that gypsum outcrops are not as physically isolated from one another as previously expected. The equally high beta diversity among the non-gypsum sites but may be explained by the high environmental heterogeneity found in the landscape of southwestern North American deserts.
John Schenk (Advisor)
Rebecca Snell (Advisor)
55 p.
Botany; Ecology; Plant Biology
gypsum, beta diversity, biogeography, edaphic endemics, species turnover, ecology, southwestern deserts

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Osterday, L. R. (2023). Investigating the Turnover in Plant Species Biodiversity on Gypsum Soil Outcrops [Undergraduate thesis, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1683294879212467

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Osterday, Lilly. Investigating the Turnover in Plant Species Biodiversity on Gypsum Soil Outcrops . 2023. Ohio University, Undergraduate thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1683294879212467.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Osterday, Lilly. "Investigating the Turnover in Plant Species Biodiversity on Gypsum Soil Outcrops ." Undergraduate thesis, Ohio University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1683294879212467

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ouhonors1683294879212467
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