Positive relationships between species diversity and genetic diversity on a local scale at Mt. Wu Yi, China

Variations of biodiversity levels are not always independent in the ecological processes driving community assembly. Recently, SGDC (Species–genetic diversity correlation) has been used to infer community assembly rules. However, SGDC was not congruent, varying with different ecological process and scales. For figuring out the relationship between species diversity (SD) and genetic diversity (GD) on a local scale, the study tested relationship between α - and β - diversity within SD and GD, based on forest dynamics plot at Mt. Wuyi, China. The results shows that weak positive correlation between species richness and genetic diversity, due to mismatch effects of topography and resource competition on SD and GD. However, a significantly positive β -SGDC was found between species dissimilarity and genetic divergence. Meanwhile, results of multiple regression on matrices (MRM) show that geography distance has a slight effect on community assembly suggesting that influence of disperse on the community assembly. The variation partitioning further clarified that the neutral process had an important impact on the community construction at Mt. Wuyi. In conclusion, both α - and β - SGDC informed that we could infer from one biodiversity level to another, and link SD and GD through ecological process. From the view of conservation planning, overemphasis on the complementarity of one level of diversity can be detrimental to another. We need to pay more attention to natural ecological processes to protect both biodiversity levels in parallel.