During the summer and fall of 2016, over 700 plant specimens were collected from Adrian College’s new preserve, the Walden West Biological Station. This detailed site flora included identification of the specimens,... [ view full abstract ]
During the summer and fall of 2016, over 700 plant specimens were collected from Adrian College’s new preserve, the Walden West Biological Station. This detailed site flora included identification of the specimens, determination of native or non-native status of the plant, and the habitat types in which they were found. Using this data and the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group III phylogeny of flowering plants, a site-wide phylogeny was reconstructed, showing the evolutionary relationships among all species present at the site. Phylocom and Picante, two community phylogenetic analysis tools, were used to determine the degree of relatedness of species found in each of four major habitat classifications. These tools also were used to determine the degree of relatedness of native vs. non-native species.
Overall, species found in dry habitats (open field, roadside, and forest) tended to be phylogenetically overdispersed across the entire phylogeny, though findings were only marginally significant. In contrast, species living in the wetlands were marginally significantly phylogenetically clustered, using mean phylogenetic distance (MPD) measures. However, when considering close phylogenetic neighbors, the open field had more close relatives than expected by chance, while nearest phylogenetic neighbors in the wetlands were further than expected by chance alone (MNTD, or mean nearest taxon distance). Non-native species were significantly phylogenetically clustered. The analytical nature of this research means that the work best fits into the ribbon “Thinking Critically”.
