Sampling event

lalashan_transect

Latest version published by National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) on 23 November 2020 National Science and Technology Council (NSTC)
Publication date:
23 November 2020
License:
CC-BY 4.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 59 records in English (40 KB) - Update frequency: unknown
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Description

Vegetation data sampled by members of Vegetation Ecology Lab (Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, National Taiwan University) along the elevation gradient (850-2100 m asl) in the northern part of Taiwan.

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 59 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Event (core)
59
Occurrence 
3777

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Zelený D (2020): lalashan_transect. v1.5. Ministry of Science and Techonology. Dataset/Samplingevent. https://ipt.taibif.tw/resource?r=lalashan_transect&v=1.5

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 00dfc6d8-0463-4302-862d-328a374965b9.  National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Taiwan Biodiversity Information Facility.

Keywords

Samplingevent

Contacts

David Zelený
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Assistant Professor
National Taiwan University
No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Rd. Taipei 106, Taiwan
106 Taipei
TW
02-3366-2512
Kun-Sung Wu
  • Metadata Provider
Research assistant
National Taiwan University

Geographic Coverage

Taiwan (northern part)

Bounding Coordinates South West [24.7, 121.44], North East [24.86, 121.53]

Project Data

Taiwan as a subtropical island exposed to East-Asian monsoon system offers a unique opportunity to study vegetation along two peculiar stress gradients, cloud frequency and chronic-wind intensity. Frequent cloud or persistent strong winds have remarkable ecological effects on vegetation and species adaptations. Cloud and monsoon forests thus represent unique vegetation types, hosting a number of endemic and relict species. In the near future, ongoing climate change is expected to modify both cloud frequency and chronic-wind intensity. To understand the impact of these changes on future diversity and species composition of cloud and monsoon forests and the ecological mechanisms behind has both high scientific and conservative values. In this project, we will use patterns of forest vegetation along the gradient of cloud frequency and chronic-wind intensity in Taiwan as a model system to study the rules about how species from species pool assemble to a local community. Apart from taxonomical approach (species census), we will also focus on plant functional traits since these allow more mechanical and general explanation of environmental filtering. Four aims will be conducted to our modelling system: 1) to analyse species- and community-level changes in leaf and wood functional trait properties along cloud and wind gradients, 2) to analyse the pattern of taxonomic and functional diversity, 3) to compile Ellenberg-like species indicator values along gradients of cloud frequency and chronic-wind intensity, and 4) to identify cloud and wind specialists and their functional trait properties. Additionally, we will invest considerable energy to sample the environment factors together with long-term monitoring, since detail knowledge of actual soil and microclimatic conditions are the keys to understanding how vegetation response to them. All aims are partly related (e.g. trait data measured within the aim 1 will also be used in other three aims); aim 2 is designated as a potential independent topic for the post-doc researcher, and within each remaining aims, independent research topics for graduate students can be designated. Studies focused on cloud and wind gradients are rather rare, especially from subtropical regions, and many ecological questions remain unresolved. We believe that our project, applying modern methods from the toolbox of vegetation ecology, can help answering at least some of them. Such findings, apart from the general importance for theoretical ecology, have also a good potential for application in conservation, management and restoration of these habitats, which are threatened by land-use and climate changes.

Title Changes in species- and community-level properties of forest vegetation along cloud and chronic-wind gradients in Taiwan
Identifier Ministry of Science and Technology, 106-2621-B-002-003-MY3
Funding Ministry of Science and Technology

The personnel involved in the project:

David Zelený

Sampling Methods

The elevation transect was separated into elevation bands, each 250 elevation meters wide, and at each of the elevation band, ten vegetation plots have been established; three of them were larger (20 m x 20 m) and permanently fixed, remaining seven were smaller (10 m x 10 m) and not permanently fixed. Within each plot, we recorded presence of all vascular plant species, including trees, shrubs and juveniles of woody species, and also herbs, lianas and epiphytes (visible from the ground). For the purpose of occurrence data, the same species occurring in different vegetation layers (e.g. tree + juvenile) were merged together.

Study Extent Elevation transect from foothill forest (850 m asl) to upper montane cloud forest (2100 m asl), set in the northern part of Taiwan.
Quality Control For each recorded species (with very few notable exceptions) we collected several specimens, which were used to verify the field determination. Species nomenclature for ferns and lycophytes follows Kuo et al. (2019), for Orchidaceae follows Lin et al. (2016), and for other vascular plant species follows the nomenclature currently adopted by Taiwan Biodiversity Information Facility (http://www.taibif.tw/). For the purpose of this study, we adopted the following taxonomic approach. Cleyera japonica is represented by three varieties (var. longicarpa, which is the most common, var. taipinensis, occurring in high elevation, and var. morii, occurring in low elevation). Neolitsea aciculata includes mainly individuals of var. aciculata, but in lower elevation also var. variabillima. Plant individuals for which we were not confident with species or variety level determination were labelled as cf. if there was enough indication about which species/variety it can be, or assigned to genus level only if there was no indication. In the later analysis, we applied liberal approach and merged species determined as cf. with those determined with confidence. References: Lin, T.-P., Liu, H.-Y., Hsieh, C.-F., & Wang, K.-H. (2016). Complete list of the native orchids of Taiwan and their type information. Taiwania, 61, 78-126. https://doi.org/10.6165/tai.2016.61.78 Kuo, L.-Y., Hsu, T.-C., Chao, Y.-S., Liou, W.-T., Chang, H.-M., Chen, C.-W., Huang, Y.-M., Li, F.-W., Huang, Y.-F., Shao, W., Lu, P.-F., Chen, C.-W., Chang, Y.-H., & Chiou, W.-L. (2019). Updating Taiwanese pteridophyte checklist: a new phylogenetic classification. Taiwania, 64, 367-395. https://doi.org/10.6165/tai.2019.64.367

Method step description:

  1. 1. Site location and field reconnaissance 2. Delineating the plots (using tape), recording all vascular plant species, and also topographical description (elevation) and GPS coordinates. From each species collected in the plot for the first time within given elevation band, we collected voucher for future determination. 3. Back in the lab, collected vouchers were determined and stored as herbarium specimens, and field data were checked and digitized.

Additional Metadata

Alternative Identifiers 00dfc6d8-0463-4302-862d-328a374965b9
https://ipt.taibif.tw/resource?r=lalashan_transect