The impacts of historical barriers on floristic patterns of plant groups with different dispersal abilities in the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan

Abstract

The effects of historical barriers in biogeographical patterns are expected to persist differently depending on dispersal abilities of organisms. We tested two hypotheses that plant groups with different dispersal abilities display different floristic patterns, and that historical barriers can explain floristic differentiation patterns in plants with low dispersal ability but not in plants with higher dispersal ability, in the seed plant flora of the Ryukyu Archipelago. This area is biogeographically interesting because several similar floristic differentiation patterns have been proposed, all of which are primarily explained by two historical barriers, the Tokara Tectonic Strait (Tokara Gap) and the Kerama Gap, which arose during the formation of the islands. We calculated floristic dissimilarity distance among 26 islands based on data sets for three dispersal-ability classes. Clustering analyses based on the floristic dissimilarity distance generated similar floristic patterns regardless of dispersal-ability class. We propose that because the landscape resistance is so strong that migration of plants is severely restricted regardless of their dispersal abilities, the similar floristic differentiation patterns are generated. Multivariate regression analyses using Mantels randomization test indicated that floristic differentiations among islands were explained by the both effects of the historical barriers and geographic distance in all dispersal-ability classes. Significance of the historical barriers is not determined by the plant dispersal abilities but presumably by the spatial distribution of the islands, stochastic dispersals, and time since the formation of the barriers.