Thanks to all who contributed to the discussion I started here, either by responding in this thread itself or sending me a message separately.

I have come to realise that the subject is much broader than can be covered in a single workshop, and hence I have decided to works towards a Special Issue on this topic in a broader sense, in addition to a small workshop with a narrower focus.

If you are interested in contributing to this Special Issue, for which I have targeted Plant and Soil, then please contact me, so I can start planning.  I particularly welcome contributions from those who already contacted me before, as I saw plenty of excellent ideas that would fit perfectly in a Special Issue on plant-soil interactions in global biodiversity hotspots to be published in Plant and Soil.

Regards,

Hans Lambers

THE Mediterranean qualifies without doubt as top global hotspot of plant biodiversity. Please refer to my article on dehesa's in Spain for plant-soil analysis of nutrients (attached) as well as my recent paper on bears in Italy where substrate (soil) via plants drives animal biodiversity. You may also wish to have a look at my older papers on ResearchGate in the Mediterranean with detailed soil versus plant analysis (France, Slovenia). Further, I have guest lectured In Greece about plant/soil/livestock interactions. Livestock (and fire) being a system component since the post-glacial development of the Mediterranean hotspot. My supervised, unpublished MSc research includes also counties at the southern shores of the Mediterranean (Tunisia, Libya). Let me know I you are interested.

Article Nitrogen and phosphorus limited production of cereals and se...

Thanks Hein.

It's a small world, given the paper you refer to was done in collaboration with someone at the university where I did my PhD.

I will give this some further thought. What I am after is plant adaptations that feature prominently in biodiversity hotspots, of which "THE Mediterranean" is certainly one. As an example of adaptations that I am thinking of, I refer to a chapter on plant mineral nutrition (in press, available on RG); that paper focus on the biodiversity hotspot in SW Australia. I received a very interesting response from someone working on Mount Kinabalu in Northern Borneo which has globally the highest biodiversity per-unit-area. He wrote: "Much of this diversity is associated with locally high geodiversity and the occurrence of ultramafic soils. My PhD research focussed on "developing an understanding of how plant diversity and foliar elemental chemistry interact with soil chemistry and altitude on ultramafic outcrops". The results show that some of the most adverse soils (on account on inferred nutrient-defiency and extremely high plant-available concentrations of nickel, manganese and magnesium), especially in combination with increasing altitude, host some of the most species-rich vegetation with the highest levels of (geographical) endemism."

That is certainly the kind of research I am after to put together in a review to work towards during a writing workshop at UWA.

Dear Mukesh,

The plant-soil interactions I would want to focus on for this writing workshop would focus on native plants in natural systems in global biodiversity hotspots. The outcome would be highly relevant for your own research, no doubt, but your own research would not really feed into the project I have in mind.

Regards,

Hans

Hello Hans,

Have a look at the attached paper, that demonstrate the two variables you mention for driving Mediterranean plant biodiversity: 'poor' soils and elevation. Indeed a substantial portion of plant biodiversity in the Mediterranean is actually alpine.

Article Fine resolution distribution modelling of endemics in Majell...

I had a quick scan of your paper, Hein, and will delve into it a bit deeper. What I did not find is information on soil nutrients. Is that information available from some of your or your colleagues' other papers? Regards, Hans

Thanks Valerie.

Serpentine soils is exactly what I had in mind when it comes to the biodiversity hotspot in California, where I suspect it is just as relevant as it is in Borneo. It does play some role in the biodiversity hotspot here in south-western Australia, but I consider it minor. I will check out the suggested paper.

Your response was greatly appreciated, especially given that I am now venturing in an area outside my comfort zone.

Regards,

Hans

Dear Hans

No soil nutrient data have been collected on these biodiversity hotspots; soil and geological maps could be retrieved and the latter lithologically interpreted by my colleagues in the NP. May be in the referred Poldini article soil nutrient information could be traced to get some idea.

I remember to have come across a correlation between serpentine substrates and high local endemic plant biodiversity (California, Zimbabwe). I wonder whether this would apply at the biome scale.

Tomorrow, I will walk the fynbos and ponder your research questions.

regards/Hein

Dear Hein,

Have a look at our chapter on plant mineral nutrition before you visit the fynbos. Fynbos is a slightly less infertile version of kwongan here in SW Australia. It function in very much the same way. The chapter is available as one of the five in my RG profile.

Regards,

Hans

Of course, New Caledonia and its maquis vegetation, a

low, sclerophyllous, evergreen, heath-like formation largely

restricted to ultrabasic substrates is a must to include.

I don't disagree at all, John, but what I am after is colleagues who are keen to contribute to such a review I propose to work towards during a workshop in Perth, Australia. So, who with intimate knowledge on the New Caledonian vegetation is keen to contribute?

Regards,

Hans

Dear Mukesh,

It will be fascinating how the diversity on your sites relates to soil nutrients, especially soil P availability, or other elements, e.g., heavy metals. Heavy metals appear to play a significant role in biodiversity hotspots in New Caledonia, Borneo and California.

Regards,

Hans

The past two days I walked the fynbos. Thanks for reference to your book chapter; a great compilation from the Gondwanaland and plant physiological perspective. However, I have not come to a better understanding of the WHY of the striking pattern of plant biodiversity at a range of spatial scales. I will make a few suggestions on a way forward in the coming days.

There are very clear patterns, when you dig deeper, Hein. The greatest diversity is where soil [P] is lowest, and that is where different groups of non-mycorrhizal species occur prominently: Proteaceae, Restionaceae, Cyperaceae. I surmise that is where facilitation becomes more important than competition, based on our recent paper, for example: Muler et al. 2014. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but these patterns will help us get towards them. Hans

Some thoughts from my recent walks in the fynbos. The pattern of Restios and Ericas on slopes at the 10-100 m scale looks similar to Mediterranean maquis: a near random distribution of specimen of a limited number of species. The difference is that the fynbos species are frequently endemics (range-restricted), but maquis shrubs more often circum-Mediterranean. The species diversity in the Restios family on the 10-100 km scale occurs at a range of habitats from wetlands to dry-land, from sea-level to high altitude, from sand to hard rock; I have not seen anything similar around the Mediterranean. In the latter the high diversity is largely vested in one or two of these habitats (as in the referred Majella paper). Soils in these range of Restios habitats are likely to differ morphologically and in organic matter, although their mineral composition may show similarities caused by substrate/lithology.

Another observation, although possibly trivial for some readers may be interesting for a wider audience. The diversity in the mid-latitudinal Mediterranean and the Cape hotspots is vested in herbs and shrubs in contrast to the equatorial hotspots with their high diversity of trees and epiphytes. Another feature of the Med plus Cape hotspots versus the tropical hotspots is that flora diversity is not matched with fauna diversity.

A third observation is on Proteas and Restios together. These quintessential Cape flora families are not just declining in number of species (at the 100 km scale) from the coast into the continent, as an explanation by the Mediterranean type of climate would suggest, instead you find a number of Proteas and Restios at the other side of the continent in the Drakensbergen and a wide gap in between. Elevation, isolation or substrate?

I see what you are doing, Hans. Instead of the common climate, topography, isolation explanation of (Mediterranean) plant biodiversity hotspots, you make a case of plant nutrient availability and cycling driving the pattern. I suggest that spatial modelling of a set of plant species against climate, substrate, elevation and some isolation metrics at a range of spatial resolutions could make the point.

Along our Jurien Bay chronosequence, where the climate is identical and variation in elevation is minimal, we see a fantastic gradient. Here edaphic factors due to pedogenesis are clearly the driving forces. See Hayes et al. (2014) for a start.

Dear Sir,

I am glad to see your question. Since India has two mega biodiversity hot spots and many reserve spots. To investigate soil-plant interactions at large scale is really a big challenge, however at smaller scale, it could be possible but needed more support and care for sampling, analyses and collecting data for chemical characterization and finally relationships at micro to macro scale.

To my knowledge, such information (Plant-soil interactions) at biodiversity hotspots level is not available in literature especially from the Indian hotspots i have not seen any article.

With best regards

Thanks to all who contributed to the discussion I started here, either by responding in this thread itself or sending me a message separately.

I have come to realise that the subject is much broader than can be covered in a single workshop, and hence I have decided to works towards a Special Issue on this topic in a broader sense, in addition to a small workshop with a narrower focus.

If you are interested in contributing to this Special Issue, for which I have targeted Plant and Soil, then please contact me, so I can start planning.  I particularly welcome contributions from those who already contacted me before, as I saw plenty of excellent ideas that would fit perfectly in a Special Issue on plant-soil interactions in global biodiversity hotspots to be published in Plant and Soil.

Regards,

Hans Lambers

Dear Sir,

I am glad to see your plannings! Please keep me in touch.

Regards

Anand

Dear Anand,

My aim is to have a Special Issue with both primary and review papers on plant-soil interactions in global biodiversity hotspots, and explore to what extent belowground processes explain why there is such a high biodiversity in some regions on Earth.  I aim for high-quality papers that fall within the scope of Plant and Soil for the Special Issue.  

If you have relevant work that fits the Special Issue, I invite you to submit it to Plant and Soil some time during the first half of 2015.

Regards,

Hans

Plant and Soil is seeking submissions for a Special Issue, entitled “Plant-soil interactions in global biodiversity hotspots”, with Antony van der Ent and Hans Lambers as Guest Editors.

On a global scale, biodiversity hotspots are located where high relief (mountains) or high geodiversity (geology and soils) intersect, especially in (sub)tropical and Mediterranean regions. Factors causing spatial heterogeneity of temperature and precipitation often further increase the concentration of plant species per unit area. Meta-analyses indicate about twenty global biodiversity hotspots with >3000 plant species per 10,000 km2 unit. The top five localities with >5000 species per 10,000 km2, covering just 0.2% of the Earth's land area surface but harbouring 6.2% of total plant diversity, are: (1) Costa Rica-Chocó, (2) Atlantic Brazil, (3) Tropical Eastern Andes, (4) Northern Borneo, and (5) New Guinea. Although most biodiversity hotspots are in moist tropical regions, there are also regions with a Mediterranean climate that are extremely species-rich: the South African Cape region, California in the United States, and the sandplains of south-western Australia. Some islands are also global centres of diversity and endemicity, notably New Caledonia, Madagascar and the islands in the Malesian archipelago. In many hotspots, such as in California and New Caledonia, the presence of ultramafic soils contributes disproportionally to concentrating the local levels of plant diversity.

Ultramafic soils (derived from iron-magnesium-rich mantle rocks) can impose edaphic stresses that may stimulate the evolution of plant species by promoting divergence (as a result of the insular occurrence of these soils) leading to specialist plants, often being (local) endemics. Patterns of biodiversity are highly scale-dependent, and particularly high levels of biodiversity often coincide with habitat patchiness and species turnover along gradients (β-diversity). However, ostensibly homogenous habitats such as lowland rainforest and the south-western Australian sandplains are also exceptionally species-rich. Habitat stability has also been associated with high species richness, but the world's most species-rich ecosystem (Mount Kinabalu in Northern Borneo with >5500 plant species in

Hi Dr Lambers, the Plant Physiology Group and the Evolution and Biodiversity Lab in the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais have been developping several interesting studies in the Cerrado Biome, Brazil.

Thanks Bernardo.

I am familiar with some of that work, and just submitted a paper together with some of these researchers.  I'll follow up on your suggestion, and check if I missed some contacts that are obviously highly relevant.

Regards,

Hans 

Please look the following paper in attachments...Regards 

amit 

Much appreciated.

Regards,

Hans