From furnace up to freezer: Elevational patterns of plant diversity in Mount Palvar, a semi-arid Irano-Turanian mountain range of southwest Asia.

Much of the world's biodiversity lies in heterogeneous mountain areas with their diverse environments. As an example, Iranian montane ranges are highly diverse, particularly in the Irano-Turanian phytogeographical region. Understanding plant diversity patterns with increasing elevation is of high significance, not least for conservation planning. We studied the pattern of species richness, Shannon diversity, endemic richness, endemics ratio, and richness of life forms along a 3900 m elevational transect in Mount Palvar, overlooking the Lut Desert in Southeast Iran. We also analyzed the effect of environmental variables on species turnover along the vertical gradient. A total of 120 vegetation plots (10 m × 10 m) were sampled along the elevational transect containing species and environmental data. To discover plant diversity pattern along the elevational gradient, generalized additive model (GAM) was used. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) was applied for illustrating the correlation between species composition and environmental variables. We found hump-shaped pattern for species richness, Shannon diversity, endemic richness, and species richness of different life forms, but a monotonic increasing pattern for ratio of endemic species from low to high elevations. Our study confirms the humped pattern of species richness peaking at intermediate elevations along a complete elevational gradient in a semi-arid mountain. The monotonic increase of endemics ratio with elevation in our area as a case study is consistent with global increase of endemism with elevation. According to our results, temperature and precipitation are two important climatic variables that drive elevational plant diversity, particularly in seasonally dry areas. Our study suggests that effective conservation and management are needed for this low latitude mountain area along with calling for long-term monitoring for species redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]