DOI: 10.5061/dryad.vdncjsxvt
title: Elevational range size patterns of vascular plants in Himalaya contradict Rapoport’s rule

description: 1. Elevational range size patterns reflect ecological and evolutionary
 processes, but they are also affected by geometric constraints. The
 confounding effect of these constraints led to an ongoing controversy
 about the elevational Rapoport’s rule, which postulates a positive
 association between the range size and elevation, and about the
 plausibility of the climate variability hypotheses as its causal
 explanation. 2. Here we used an advanced null modelling approach to
 disentangle the interacting effects of geometric constraints and species
 richness gradients on the elevational range size of vascular plants. We
 collected extensive field data on elevational distribution for 728
 vascular plant species occurring in the Ladakh region, Western Himalaya.
 We supplied these regional data with sub-continental elevational ranges
 extracted from the literature. Moreover, we used in-situ measured
 temperatures to quantify temperature variability along an elevational
 gradient to test the climate variability hypothesis. 3. Observed range
 size patterns were sensitive to methods used to quantify the average range
 size. Range truncation disproportionately affected regional ranges of
 low-elevation species and resulted in spurious support of elevational
 Rapoport’s rule. However, when the confounding effects of domain
 boundaries and richness gradient were controlled, our null models revealed
 only slight deviations from the random expectations of elevational range
 size patterns, contrasting with the prediction of the Rapoport’s rule. In
 line with these findings, seasonal and diurnal temperature variability did
 not change with elevation. 4. Synthesis: Geometric constraints combined
 with underlying species richness gradient create range size patterns
 seemingly supporting Rapoport´s elevational rule. However, null models
 accounting for these effects indicate that the range-size of vascular
 plants in the Himalayas does not increase with elevation. Given the
 universality of the geometric constraints and species richness gradient,
 our results suggest that these confounding factors must be controlled when
 testing Rapoport’s rule. The null model approach described here provides
 an efficient tool to do that.
description: Elevational species range data from
 Ladakh (regional ranges) are based on our systematic floristic exploration
 of Ladakh conducted between 1997 and 2015, comprising 102,999 species
 occurrences recorded from 4,062 distinct
 localities. Sub-continental elevational
 range size refers to species ranges in the whole High Asia and was
 compiled from secondary sources: the Flora of Pakistan
 (https://www.tropicos.org/Project/Pakistan), the Flora of China
 (www.eFloras.org), the Flora of Nanga Parbat (Dickoré & Nüsser,
 2000), Dentant (2018), The Himalayan Uplands Plant database (Dickoré,
 2011), and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF,
 https://www.gbif.org). Elevational records from the GBIF were rounded to
 the nearest hundred. Unreliable outliers based on historical records (i.e.
 published elevation more than 1000 m apart from other records) were
 omitted and the next reliable occurrence extreme was used
 instead.
description: This dataset contains R code a two files containing data
 supporting publication:<br> Macek M., Dvorský M., Kopecký M., Wild
 J. & Doležal J. (2021) Elevational range size patterns of vascular
 plants in Himalaya contradict Rapoport’s rule. Journal of
 Ecology. R code:<br>
 RCode_Macek_2021_ElevationalRangeSizes_JEcol.R Species
 data table: "species_data.txt"<br> - tab-delimited table,
 contains information on elevational range for 1054 vascular plant species
 occuring in Ladakh, India. Dataset column
 description:<br> Species - species name (text)<br> Family -
 phylogenetig grouping to family (text)<br> FunctionalType -
 functional type (text)<br> n - No. of records in Ladakh
 (numeric)<br> MinRangeRegional - Min. recorded elevation in Ladakh
 (m a.s.l.), primary data - florictic surveys by L.Klimeš and J.Dolezal
 (numeric)<br> MaxRangeRegional - Max. recorded elevation in Ladakh
 (m a.s.l.), primary data - florictic surveys by L.Klimeš and J.Dolezal
 (numeric)<br> MinLiteratureCont - Min. recorded elevation at a
 sub-continental scale (Ladakh & adjacent regions) (m a.s.l.),
 compiled from primary data and literature search (numeric)<br>
 MaxLiteratureCont - Max. recorded elevation at a sub-continental scale
 (Ladakh & adjacent regions) (m a.s.l.), compiled from primary data
 and literature search (numeric) Climatic data table:
 "climatic_data.txt"<br> - tab-delimited table, contains
 information on climatic variability in Ladakh, India from TOMST TMS3
 temperature sensors (Wild et al. 2019). Temperature was measured 15cm
 above ground. First 18 lines contain definitions of columns.
 Dataset column description:<br> SiteID  locality
 ID<br> Elev - site elevation (m a.s.l.)                          
                          <br> Lat - latitude; decimal degrees,
 rounded to 2 decimal places                                              
      <br> Lon - longitude; decimal degrees, rounded to 2 decimal
 places                                                    <br>
 Startdate - Measurement start date                                      
              <br> Enddate - Measurement end date                  
                                  <br> Tmean - Average temperature
 from all measurements (15min interval, in °C)                          
                          <br> Tmin - Average minimum daily
 temperature of the coldest month (°C)                                  
                  <br> Tmax - Average daily maximum temperature of
 the warmest month (°C)                                                  
  <br> SeasonalRange - Tmax - Tmin (°C)                              
                      <br> AvgTmin - Average daily min temperature 
 (°C)                                                    <br> AvgTmax
 - Average daily max temperature (°C)                                      
              <br> Diurnal Range - average daily diurnal range
 (AvgTmax - AvgTmin)  (°C)                                              
      <br> AbsTmin - Absolute minimum temperature (°C)              
                                      <br> AbsTmax - Absolute maximum
 temperature (°C)                                                  
   reference:<br> Wild, J., Kopecký, M., Macek,
 M., Šanda, M., Jankovec, J., & Haase, T. (2019). Climate at
 ecologically relevant scales: A new temperature and soil moisture logger
 for long-term microclimate measurement. Agricultural and Forest
 Meteorology, 268, 40–47. doi: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.12.018