Modern approaches to modeling plant diversity and spatial distribution of plant species: Implication prospects in Russia

What determines patterns in species richness is one of the oldest unresolved questions in biology, which attached increasingly more attention of ecologists under climate change and human impacts on ecosystems. The mechanisms of the decrease in species richness from the equators to the poles have intrigued ecologists since the era of von Humboldt, Wallace, and Darwin (Brown, Lomolino, 1998). Nowadays, studies on plant diversity modeling and spatial distribution of plant species are on the edge of modern biological and ecological research. The basic idea of the given review is to summarize the key points of modern methodology and methods of the discussed topic. Firstly, the main directions of studies on latitudinal diversity gradient (i.e., the decrease in species diversity with latitude) as freezing-tolerance hypothesis (or tropical conservatism hypothesis) and niche conservatism hypothesis have been discussed. It is mentioned that understanding the latitudinal gradient in species diversity has been one of the central questions in biology for two centuries, and yet it remains a major challenge to biologists. Analysis of recent publications unfolds that this problem still remains controversial. Compiling new datasets for species distribution and their ensembles along latitudinal gradient and complex analysis by new methods will be useful for future studies. Secondly, modern approaches to species distribution modeling (SDM) have been analyzed. In the past decade, the number of publications on that topic rapidly increased (See Table 1). Publication analysis concerning studies on habitat suitability modeling (HSM) or species distribution modeling (SDM) revealed poor involvement (less than 1%) of Russian scientists in the discussed topic. The importance of using high-quality data of species occurrences and valid modeling approaches to get reliable results and prognostic maps has been highlighted (See Tables 2-4). It is marked that today different algorithms can be applicable in R, which provides many useful tools for SDM, such as Biomod2 platform and other specific packages. Brief practical rules for good SDM practice have been presented. For beginners, information on training manuals, the main books and papers, describing SDM methods is provided. In the third part of the review, previous studies on plant geography in Russia have been analyzed. The baseline of these studies is very important and a brief overview shows good perspectives. It is necessary to point out that previously obtained data on plant species distribution can be used in modern research and be successfully involved in the modeling of plant diversity and species distribution (See Fig. 1 and 2). Different kinds of available data (point, contour, grid mapping, floristic species lists, and releves) have been reviewed. There are a lot of elaborated databases on plant species distribution in Russia, but most of them are not available online and do not have free access to data. The first overview on Russian plant diversity revealed that some territories, such as the European part of Russia, were investigated quite well. Plant species distribution data for the north-eastern part of Russia have low resolution and more botanical studies necessary for that region. Analysis of modern Russian botanical publications revealed an increase in studies on creating new databases on plants and vegetation, herbaria digitizing, and publishing species occurrences data online, mostly on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) platform (http://gbif.ru/). Studies on the base SDM methodology are not common, and mostly single species or plant group distribution are analyzed. There is a lack of research covering plant diversity for the whole territory of Russia and big regions within the country. Such studies for the Asian part of Russia become more and more important. Russian GBIF team usually organizes conferences, workshops and training courses which are helpful in promoting SDM studies in Russia. Development of such research will give an opportunity for detailed analysis of unique plants and vegetation in Northern Eurasia, and a better understanding of the main patterns of plant diversity in Russia, will help to estimate the distribution dynamics of species and plant communities under climate change and human impact processes and will elaborate practical tools for conservation of rare and endangered plant species. The paper contains 2 Figures, 4 Tables and 106 References. Acknowledgments: The author expresses gratitude to Prof. NE Zimmermann (WSL), Prof. Zhiheng Wang and Xiangyan Su (Peking University) for discussion of the main ideas and help with analyzing the data.

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