Beta diversity and factors that drive land-snail patterns in Jiangxi Province, People’s Republic of China

Abstract

Jiangxi Province is a biodiversity hotspot in the People’s Republic of China and has abundant land-snail species (247). Beta diversity is a key concept for understanding the functioning of ecosystems, the conservation of biodiversity, and the management of ecosystems. Here, the pattern of beta diversity for land snails in Jiangxi Province was analyzed. The results showed that the spatial turnover component was the main contributor to beta diversity, indicating that additional conservation efforts must target an increase in the number of protected areas, which should be spread across each one of the areas, to maximize the protection of species diversity. The nestedness component of diversity was always low, but there was a marked difference between microsnails, in which zero values occurred in 41.3% of all cases, and macrosnails, in which zero values occurred in only 2.7% of cases. There was a difference in the pattern of beta diversity between the two. The principal coordinate analysis showed a clear pattern with four groups in Jiangxi Province. In addition, we found significant effects of precipitation and altitude on overall beta diversity. These results will provide important basic information for the conservation of biodiversity in land snails.