Soils on exposed Sunda Shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of Southeast Asia

The marked biogeographic difference between western (Malay Peninsula and Sumatra) and eastern (Borneo) Sundaland is surprising given the long time that these areas have formed a single landmass. A dispersal barrier in the form of a dry savanna corridor during glacial maxima has been proposed to expl...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Slik, J.W.F.
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/20928
_version_ 1855538700455247872
author Slik, J.W.F.
author_browse Slik, J.W.F.
author_facet Slik, J.W.F.
author_sort Slik, J.W.F.
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description The marked biogeographic difference between western (Malay Peninsula and Sumatra) and eastern (Borneo) Sundaland is surprising given the long time that these areas have formed a single landmass. A dispersal barrier in the form of a dry savanna corridor during glacial maxima has been proposed to explain this disparity. However, the short duration of these dry savanna conditions make it an unlikely sole cause for the biogeographic pattern. An additional explanation might be related to the coarse sandy soils of central Sundaland. To test these two nonexclusive hypotheses, we performed a floristic cluster analysis based on 111 tree inventories from Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo. We then identified the indicator genera for clusters that crossed the central Sundaland biogeographic boundary and those that did not cross and tested whether drought and coarse-soil tolerance of the indicator genera differed between them. We found 11 terminal floristic clusters, 10 occurring in Borneo, 5 in Sumatra, and 3 in Peninsular Malaysia. Indicator taxa of clusters that occurred across Sundaland had significantly higher coarse-soil tolerance than did those from clusters that occurred east or west of central Sundaland. For drought tolerance, no such pattern was detected. These results strongly suggest that exposed sandy sea-bed soils acted as a dispersal barrier in central Sundaland. However, we could not confirm the presence of a savanna corridor. This finding makes it clear that proposed biogeographic explanations for plant and animal distributions within Sundaland, including possible migration routes for early humans, need to be reevaluated.
format Journal Article
id CGSpace20928
institution CGIAR Consortium
language Inglés
publishDate 2011
publishDateRange 2011
publishDateSort 2011
record_format dspace
spelling CGSpace209282025-01-24T14:20:38Z Soils on exposed Sunda Shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of Southeast Asia Slik, J.W.F. climate change plant density distribution The marked biogeographic difference between western (Malay Peninsula and Sumatra) and eastern (Borneo) Sundaland is surprising given the long time that these areas have formed a single landmass. A dispersal barrier in the form of a dry savanna corridor during glacial maxima has been proposed to explain this disparity. However, the short duration of these dry savanna conditions make it an unlikely sole cause for the biogeographic pattern. An additional explanation might be related to the coarse sandy soils of central Sundaland. To test these two nonexclusive hypotheses, we performed a floristic cluster analysis based on 111 tree inventories from Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo. We then identified the indicator genera for clusters that crossed the central Sundaland biogeographic boundary and those that did not cross and tested whether drought and coarse-soil tolerance of the indicator genera differed between them. We found 11 terminal floristic clusters, 10 occurring in Borneo, 5 in Sumatra, and 3 in Peninsular Malaysia. Indicator taxa of clusters that occurred across Sundaland had significantly higher coarse-soil tolerance than did those from clusters that occurred east or west of central Sundaland. For drought tolerance, no such pattern was detected. These results strongly suggest that exposed sandy sea-bed soils acted as a dispersal barrier in central Sundaland. However, we could not confirm the presence of a savanna corridor. This finding makes it clear that proposed biogeographic explanations for plant and animal distributions within Sundaland, including possible migration routes for early humans, need to be reevaluated. 2011 2012-06-04T09:15:19Z 2012-06-04T09:15:19Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/20928 en Slik, J.W.F., et al. 2011. Soils on exposed Sunda Shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of Southeast Asia . PNAS 30 (108) :12343-12347. ISSN: 1091-6490.
spellingShingle climate change
plant density
distribution
Slik, J.W.F.
Soils on exposed Sunda Shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of Southeast Asia
title Soils on exposed Sunda Shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of Southeast Asia
title_full Soils on exposed Sunda Shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of Southeast Asia
title_fullStr Soils on exposed Sunda Shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of Southeast Asia
title_full_unstemmed Soils on exposed Sunda Shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of Southeast Asia
title_short Soils on exposed Sunda Shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of Southeast Asia
title_sort soils on exposed sunda shelf shaped biogeographic patterns in the equatorial forests of southeast asia
topic climate change
plant density
distribution
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/20928
work_keys_str_mv AT slikjwf soilsonexposedsundashelfshapedbiogeographicpatternsintheequatorialforestsofsoutheastasia