Does elevation influence the distributional patterns of tropical myxomycetes? A case study in Costa Rica

Figures & data

Figure 1. Map of Costa Rica showing the general location of all four study areas including details of the four transects established for this project. For abbreviations, see Materials and Methods section.

Table 1. Myxomycete species and number of records according to overall abundance categories (OAC) and transects studied in the present investigation.

			Transect
			Atlantic region		Pacific region
Species/diversity estimator	pH	OAC	CLV	GH	FC	PT
Arcyria cinerea	6.7	VA	95	57	90	55
Didymium squamulosum	6.8	VA	37	33	113	96
Lamproderma scintillans	6.8	VA	45	57	64	92
Diderma hemisphaericum	6.8	A	46	68	30	47
Didymium difforme	6.5	A	32	39	31	36
Physarum pusillum	6.7	A	27	21	21	22
Comatricha tenerrima	6.6	A	14	25	16	26
Physarum compressum	7.1	A	4	10	43	17
Perichaena chrysosperma	6.9	A	11	25	14	18
Didymium bahiense	6.5	C	10	5	21	15
Stemonitis fusca	6.2	C	11	4	12	19
Arcyria afroalpina	6.9	C	2	6	16	14
Didymium minus	6.7	C	8	8	6	10
Didymium iridis	6.6	C	9	4	13	4
Comatricha nigra	6.7	C	5	9	7	7
Didymium clavus	6.7	C	12	6	0	8
Diderma effusum	7.0	C	1	0	25	0
Perichaena depressa	7.0	C	6	10	5	3
Diachea leucopodia	5.9	C	5	0	4	13
Perichaena pedata	7.2	C	2	9	8	2
Physarum decipiens	6.7	C	6	3	6	1
Physarum didermoides	7.4	C	1	8	5	1
Physarum oblatum	6.5	C	7	1	5	0
Physarum nucleatum	6.3	C	8	1	0	1
Willkommlangea reticulata	6.0	C	2	0	1	6
Didymium dubium	7.0	C	0	6	1	1
Physarum cinereum	6.8	C	1	1	4	2
Physarum melleum	6.3	C	0	2	1	5
Physarum album	6.5	C	0	0	4	3
Comatricha subcaespitosa	5.9	O	0	1	5	0
Didymium nigripes	7.0	O	1	2	3	0
Perichaena vermicularis	6.6	O	1	0	3	2
Physarum bivalve	6.4	O	0	1	5	0
Comatricha pulchella	5.7	O	0	2	1	2
Arcyria denudata	6.8	O	2	0	2	0
Comatricha laxa	6.8	O	0	0	5	0
Paradiacheopsis longipes	5.6	O	0	0	1	3
Physarum leucopus	6.6	O	4	0	0	0
Arcyria globosa	6.5	O	0	2	0	1
Collaria arcyrionema	7.5	O	0	0	3	0
Comatricha elegans	5.9	O	0	0	1	2
Cribraria violacea	7.2	O	1	0	2	0
Didymium anellus	6.4	O	1	2	0	0
Physarum auriscalpium	6.9	O	0	1	2	0
Physarum bogoriense	6.4	O	1	0	1	1
Physarum roseum	6.9	O	2	0	0	1
Physarum viride	6.9	O	3	0	0	0
Hemitrichia pardina	6.9	R	5	9	3	10
Physarum aeneum	6.9	R	0	0	2	0
Physarum mutabile	6.9	R	0	0	2	0
Physarum stellatum	6.7	R	1	0	1	0
Physarum superbum	7.0	R	0	1	0	1
Stemonitopsis amoena	5.8	R	0	0	0	2
Arcyria pomiformis	5.5	R	0	0	1	0
Comatricha lurida	6.9	R	0	0	1	0
Comatricha suksdorfii	7.4	R	1	0	0	0
Cribraria tenella	5.7	R	0	0	0	1
Didymium melanospermum	7.2	R	0	0	1	0
Didymium serpula	7.4	R	0	0	1	0
Diachea bulbillosa	7.7	R	0	0	1	0
Hemitrichia calyculata	6.9	R	0	0	0	1
Hemitrichia serpula	7.3	R	0	0	0	1
Licea pusilla	7.3	R	0	0	1	0
Perichaena corticalis	8.3	R	0	1	0	0
Physarum galbeum	4.7	R	0	0	1	0
Stemonitis uvifera	4.5	R	0	0	0	1
Stemonitopsis hyperopta	7.2	R	0	1	0	0

Average pH values are provided in all cases. For abbreviation, see Materials and Methods section.

Table 2. Diversity-based estimator values according to transects and elevational categories used in the present investigation.

Categories	ONS	Simpson’s DI	Shannon’s DI	Evenness	MNS (Chao 1)
Transects
CLV	38	0.90	2.83	0.44	45
GH	36	0.91	2.84	0.47	42
FC	51	0.91	2.99	0.39	68
TP	41	0.91	2.83	0.41	51
Elevation
Low	56	0.92	3.07	0.38	78
Medium	47	0.91	2.87	0.37	65
High	47	0.92	2.85	0.40	55

ONS: observed number of species; MNS: maximum number of species.

Figure 2. Bray–Curtis-based hierarchical cluster trees showing the taxonomic and structural proximity of transects (left) and elevation categories (right) used during this project. All branching are supported by bootstrap values higher than 0.50.

Figure 3. Scatter plot of abundance values for all 40 sampling sites studied during the present investigation arranged according to elevation. Elevational categories and abundance values are also shown. A lack of trend and correlation between the two variables is noted, even though an outlier around 800 m is present.