Ecological Biogeography of Plants on Islands

大多数岛屿生物地理学研究都受到影响，因为它们缺乏关于岛屿栖息地相对于大陆地点的信息，而且它们只记录物种的存在--缺乏而不是密度。在之前的有限数量的研究中，植物在大陆岛屿上通常具有高迁移率和低灭绝率，因此这些岛屿是相对丰富的物种，具有较低的特有性。这项研究建议扩大1981年开始的关于加拿大温哥华岛巴克利海湾岛屿上植物多样性、密度和分布的工作。这项新的研究将考察不同岛屿上植物分布作为栖息地可用性的函数，作为岛屿上生物和非生物因素的函数的周转动态，以及系统中更具活力的物种的短期种群和进化后果。巴克利海峡系统由185个岛屿组成，从近岸岩石到距离“大陆”30多公里的岛屿，大小不一，大小超过5个数量级，植物种类非常多样，生长形式、栖息地要求、扩散和繁殖动态都有很大不同，巴克利海湾系统是更近距离研究目前引起生态生物地理学家分歧的许多问题的理想选择。拟议的研究将侧重于栖息地的定义和量化，植物物种栖息地质量的分类，评估物种更替的原因，量化两个植物群体中的扩散变量，鸟类分散的软果物种和风散散的降落伞物种，以及研究食草动物对殖民的影响，以及岛屿生物对与扩散相关的形态和草食动物抗性的进化后果。

Most island biogeographic studies suffer because they lack information on island habitats relative to mainland sites and they record only species presense-absence rather than density. In a limited number of previous studies, plants have been shown to have high immigration and low extinction rates on continental islands generally, and hence such islands are relatively species rich with low endemism. This study proposes to extend work begun in 1981 on the plant diversities, densities, and distribution on islands in Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island Canada. The new research will examine plant distributions as functions of habitat availability on various islands, turnover dynamics as functions of both biotic and abiotic factors on islands, and the short-term population and evolutionary consequences of the more dynamic species in the system. With a range of 185 islands from inshore rocks to over 30 km distant from "mainland", varying in size over 5 orders of magnitude, and with a very diverse flora with widely different growth forms, habitat requirements, dispersal and reproduction dynamics, the Barkley Sound system is ideal for a closer examination of many of the questions that currently cause dissent among ecological biogeographers. Proposed research will focus on habitat definition and quantification, classification of habitat quality for plant species, assessing the causes of species turnover, quantifying dispersal variables in two plant groups, soft-fruited species that are bird-dispersed and parachuted species that are wind-dispersed, and examining the effects of herbivory on colonization and the evolutionary consequences of island life to dispersal-related morphology and herbivore resistance.