Waterbirds are vital for wetland ecosystems, but climate change and human activities are harming these habitats globally, reducing biodiversity and threatening waterbird survival. In China, wetlands in humid and arid regions face quite different threats, necessitating targeted conservation strategies. However, few studies have assessed the relative roles of various drivers in determining geographical patterns of alpha and beta diversity of wetland waterbirds in different regions, particularly from the perspectives of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity. This study aims to connect climate and landscape variables with waterbirds diversity in 71 wetlands across China's humid and arid regions. The results showed that mean annual temperature was negatively associated with taxonomic diversity but positively correlated with phylogenetic structure. Phylogenetic and functional diversity was significantly associated with paleoclimate change. Additionally, patch richness was positively correlated with taxonomic diversity and functional structure, but negatively correlated with phylogenetic diversity and structure. Notably, taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity was dominated by turnover, while functional beta diversity was dominated by nestedness-resultant components. Total edge and patch density were significantly correlated with waterbird beta diversity. In addition, arid regions showed higher turnover in taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity compared to humid regions. Compared to arid regions, humid regions had consistently higher nestedness-resultant components in the three diversity dimensions and higher turnover in functional beta diversity. These findings indicated that while climate variables are important for waterbird diversity patterns, wetland’s landscape characteristics could also play significant roles. In addition, conservation of Chinese wetland bird diversity should consider unique strategies for different biodiversity dimensions as well as for different regions.

Distribution of geographically restricted and evolutionarily unique species and its underlying drivers is key to understand evolutionary patterns and conserve biodiversity. However, few studies have simultaneously tested the associations of biotic interactions, environmental heterogeneity, contemporary and paleo-climate, species traits, and human activities with patterns of bird endemism. Here, we quantified the geographic distribution patterns and drivers of species and phylogenetic endemism of 1127 bird species in China. The results showed that species and phylogenetic endemism of Chinese birds was higher in western China, especially in northwestern and southwestern China. Higher plant species richness, altitudinal range, net primary productivity, and lower temperature seasonality were associated with higher species and phylogenetic endemism. In addition, altitudinal range and net primary productivity can also indirectly influence species and phylogenetic endemism by directly affecting plant species richness. This may be because greater altitudinal range could foster more diverse habitats, and higher net primary productivity could ensure abundant food resources. Notably, species and phylogenetic endemism were also negatively associated with clutch size and cropland area. These findings identify that northwestern and southwestern China have the highest evolutionary and biogeographical uniqueness of bird assemblages, and provide insights into the evolutionary underpinnings of biogeographical patterns in Chinese birds. Meanwhile, it is crucial to conserve plant diversity, focus on groups with specific traits, and reduce human activities to better protect bird diversity.

Mammals are crucial for sustaining ecosystem functions and services, yet their diversity is increasingly threatened in China’s arid and semi-arid regions because of environmental fragility and intensifying human activities. Assessing the diversity of mammal assemblages across taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional dimensions improves the understanding of biodiversity maintenance and community assembly in drylands. Here, these three dimensions of biodiversity and their respective community structures were quantified, and these metrics were linked to modern climate, climate change since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; ~21 ka), elevation range, anthropogenic disturbance, and plant species richness. The two variables most strongly associated with taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity were plant species richness and annual precipitation; land-use change 1900–1950 and mean annual temperature; and glacial–interglacial precipitation change and plant species richness, respectively. For phylogenetic and functional structure, the leading predictors were, respectively, land-use change 1900–1950 and annual precipitation, and annual precipitation and elevation range. Overall, mammal diversity patterns in arid and semi-arid China reflect the interacting effects of contemporary and historical climate, environmental heterogeneity, land-use change, and plant diversity. These results improve the mechanistic understanding of biodiversity maintenance in drylands and provide a scientific basis for conservation planning under future climate change and human disturbance. Highlights Mammal diversity was assessed across China’s arid and semi-arid regions. China’s drylands contained 33% of China’s mammal species but 52% of its phylogenetic diversity and 85% of its functional diversity. Taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity showed clear spatial mismatches. Plant species richness, modern climate, environmental heterogeneity, and land-use change shaped different diversity facets. Conservation planning in drylands should move beyond species richness alone.

Many different factors, such as species traits, socio-economic factors, geographical and environmental factors, can lead to specimen collection preference. This study aims to determine whether grassland specimen collection in China is preferred by species traits (i.e., plant height, flowering and fruiting period), environmental range (i.e., the temperature and precipitation range) and geographical range (i.e., distribution range and altitudinal range). Ordinary least squares models and phylogenetic generalized linear mixed models were used to analyze the relationships between specimen number and the explanatory variables. Random Forest models were then used to find the most parsimonious multivariate model. The results showed that interannual variation in specimen number between 1900 and 2020 was considerable. Specimen number of these species in southeast China was notably lower than that in northwest China. Environmental range and geographical range of species had significant positive correlations with specimen number. In addition, there were relatively weak but significant associations between specimen number and species trait (i.e., plant height and flowering and fruiting period). Random Forest models indicated that distribution range was the most important variable, followed by flowering and fruiting period, and altitudinal range. These findings suggest that future floristic surveys should pay more attention to species with small geographical range, narrow environmental range, short plant height, and short flowering and fruiting period. The correction of specimen collection preference will also make the results of species distribution model, species evolution and other works based on specimen data more accurate.

AimWildlife populations are continuing to decrease worldwide. Understanding the ranking and distribution of drivers of species declines is crucial to enable targeted actions to counteract major threats. However, few studies have assessed the relative importance and geographic distribution of threats to biodiversity in China, even for high-profile groups such as birds and mammals. Therefore, this study aims to rank and map the distribution of threat to birds and mammals in China, which could provide novel insight into biodiversity conservation in China.LocationChina.MethodsA database of different threats for 147 threatened bird species and 176 threatened terrestrial mammal species was obtained from China's Red List of Biodiversity published in 2021. We collated information on the distribution and threat categories for birds and mammals in China, aiming to classify, rank and map threats. We used Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index to examine the correlations of threats occurring simultaneously, and compared the distribution of habitat of threatened birds and mammals. In addition, we conducted threat ranking analyses of threatened birds and mammals between different orders and traits (body mass and clutch/litter sizes).ResultsThe results showed that the most common threats to birds were habitat loss, hunting, human disturbance, agriculture, pollution and logging, while the most common threats to mammals were hunting, agriculture, logging, habitat loss, human disturbance and livestock farming or ranching. These threats showed different geographic patterns, and some threats frequently co-occur as threat syndromes. Forests were the primary habitat for most threatened species, and orders formed by larger species with small clutch or litter sizes were more likely to be threatened.Main ConclusionsWe highlight the most common threats and key areas for conservation. Furthermore, focusing on clusters of co-occurring threats may be the most effective way to aid recovery of threatened species, and targeted actions are needed to counter ongoing population declines in many groups. These actions should not be limited to the protection of regions where species are at risk of multiple significant threats, but should also include the maintenance and restoration of native forests and strategic planning of afforestation through planted forests.

AimsLong-term climate stability, contemporary climate and environmental heterogeneity have been linked to bird diversity patterns through their direct impacts on diversification rate, as well as through their indirect effects on plant species richness, which could also directly and indirectly affect bird diversity. This study aimed to quantitatively assess whether these potential drivers could indirectly affect bird species richness through their direct effects on the diversification rate in birds in eastern Asia.LocationMainland China.TaxonBirds.MethodsUsing the distribution data of 1127 bird species across 320 prefecture cities in China and a phylogenetic tree of these bird species, we analysed the distribution patterns of bird species richness and diversification rate of all birds, passerine birds and non-passerine birds, respectively. We also investigated their relationships with long-term climate stability, contemporary climate, elevation range and plant diversity using ordinary least squares regression model and simultaneous autoregressive model. In addition, structural equation model was used to analyse whether these drivers could indirectly affect bird species richness through their direct effects on bird diversification rate.ResultsThe results showed that bird species richness and diversification rate were highest in southwestern China. Additionally, diversification rate for passerine birds was higher than non-passerine birds and all birds. Regression analyses revealed that plant species richness was the variable most associated with bird species richness and diversification rate across the three groups. Notably, results from structural equation model indicated that plant species richness, elevation range and glacial-interglacial climate change can indirectly influence bird species richness by directly affecting diversification rates.Main ConclusionsThese findings emphasize the importance of considering diversification rate when understanding the geographic distribution patterns of bird diversity. The direct and indirect effects of plant species richness, elevation range and glacial-interglacial climate change on bird diversity highlight the crucial role of mountain regions with higher plant diversity and stable paleoclimate in forming and maintaining biodiversity.

Wind power has been developing rapidly as a key measure to mitigate human-driven global warming. The understanding of the development and impacts of wind farms on local climate and vegetation is of great importance for their rational use but is still limited. In this study, we combined remote sensing and on-site investigations to identify wind farm locations in Inner Mongolia and performed landscape pattern analyses using Fragstats. We explored the impacts of wind farms on land surface temperature (LST) and vegetation net primary productivity (NPP) between 1990 and 2020 by contrasting these metrics in wind farms with those in non-wind farm areas. The results showed that the area of wind farms increased rapidly since 1990 to 10,755 km2 by 2020. Spatially, wind farms are mainly clustered in three aggregation areas in the center. Further, wind farms increased nighttime LST, with a mean value of 0.23 °C, but had minor impacts on the daytime LST. Moreover, wind farms caused a decline in NPP, especially over forest areas, with an average reduction of 12.37 GC/m². Given the impact of wind farms on LST and NPP, we suggest that the development of wind farms should fully consider their direct and potential impacts. This study provides scientific guidance on the spatial pattern of future wind farms.

AimsPrimary forests provide critical habitat and diverse ecological niches for bird species, which are being seriously threatened by massive anthropogenic activities in the Anthropocene. Conversion from primary forests to secondary forests and plantation forests results in biodiversity loss, reducing ecosystem functioning and services. However, few studies have evaluated bird diversity patterns in different forest types caused by anthropogenic activities at both pantropics and regional scales, especially from taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional perspective simultaneously, as well as from the perspective of both alpha and beta diversity.LocationPantropics.MethodsWe analysed patterns of bird diversity in primary forests, secondary forests and plantation forests at pantropics and regional scales. Number of threatened species, rare species, and generalist species in the three forest types were summarized. Taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity, as well as phylogenetic and functional structure of bird communities among the three forest types, were evaluated through multiple comparisons. Beta diversity of bird communities in the three forest types was also calculated and decomposed into turnover and nestedness-resultant components, and correlations between environmental factors and beta diversity were examined.ResultsThe results showed that primary forests harboured more threatened species, more large species and specialist species than secondary forests and plantation forests. In addition, plantation forests had lower phylogenetic alpha diversity but higher functional alpha diversity, and had more clustered phylogenetic structure but more over-dispersed functional structure. Notably, taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional beta diversity of bird communities was significantly higher in primary forests than in plantation forests, and turnover components showed similar patterns and accounted for major parts of overall beta diversity.Main ConclusionsThese findings suggest that primary forests play an important role in protecting bird taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity, and emphasize that future conservation efforts should focus on the strict protection of primary forests.

Biological specimens are fundamental for taxonomy and flora/fauna research. More importantly, they also play crucial roles in recording environmental impacts on morphology and behavior, which is vital for biodiversity research and conservation. However, there are few systematic studies on the patterns and drivers of bird specimen number at regional scales. This study is the first attempt to examine the relationships between bird specimen number and species traits as well as climate niche breadth in China, aiming to answer two questions: 1) how do species’ temperature niche breadth and precipitation niche breadth influence specimen number? 2) which trait is most associated with bird specimen number? The associations between bird specimen number and explanatory variables were examined using ordinary least squares, generalized linear models, phylogenetic generalized linear mixed models, and multiple comparisons. The results showed that Muscicapidae was the family with the highest specimen number, and Passeriformes was the order with the highest specimen number. Bird specimen number significantly increased with larger temperature niche breadth and precipitation niche breadth. Specimen number was also positively associated with geographic range size, habitat specificity, hunting vulnerability and clutch size, but negatively associated with body size. These findings suggest that future bird specimen collection should pay more attention to birds with limited ecological niches, large body sizes, and small clutch sizes. This research enhances the use of bird specimen data to study and preserve biodiversity.

Natural environmental factors and anthropogenic activities could have strong impacts on threatened species distribution. Based on Random Forest modeling and ordinary least squares models, we tested the correlations between natural environmental factors (mean annual temperature (MAT), mean annual precipitation (MAP) and elevation range), anthropogenic activities (changes in cropland area, population density and pasture area) over different periods (between 1700 and 1800, between 1800 and 1900, and between 1900 and 2000) and ratio of threatened orchids in China. The results showed that threatened orchids were concentrated in Southwest China, Central China and Northeast China. The ratio of threatened orchids was positively correlated with MAT and MAP, but negatively correlated with elevation range. In addition, the three anthropogenic activity variables most correlated with threatened orchids ratio were changes of cropland area between 1900 and 2000, population density between 1700 and 1800, and between 1800 and 1900. These correlations were positive, indicating that areas with more anthropogenic activities had more threatened orchids. Moreover, MAP and changes of cropland area between 1900 and 2000 together were more correlated with threatened orchids ratio than other variables. These findings suggest important roles of contemporary climate and anthropogenic activities in shaping the distribution of threatened orchid species in China.

Changes in land use and climate directly impact species populations. Species with divergent characteristics may respond differently to these changes. Therefore, understanding species’ responses to environmental changes is fundamental for alleviating biodiversity loss. However, the relationships between land use changes, climate changes, species' intrinsic traits and population changes at different spatial scales have not been tested. In this study, we analysed the effects of land use and climate changes from different time periods and species traits on the population change rates of 2195 bird and mammal populations in 577 species recorded in the Living Planet Database at global, tropical and temperate scales. We hypothesized that both bird and mammal populations will decline owing to climate and land use changes, especially phylogenetically young and small-bodied species. We found that bird population trends were more closely related to environmental changes and phylogenetic age than those of mammals at global and temperate scales. Mammal population trends were not significantly correlated with land use or climate changes but were with longevity at global and temperate scales. Given the divergent responses of bird and mammal populations to these explanatory variables, different conservation strategies should be considered for these taxa and for different regions.

Abstract The desert ecosystem of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) is an important component of China's desert ecosystem. Studying the mechanisms shaping the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional beta diversity of plant communities in the QTP desert will help us to promote scientific conservation and management of the region's biodiversity. This study investigated the effects of environmental (including altitude, climate factors, and soil factors) and geographic distances on three facets of beta diversity as well as their turnover and nestedness components based on field survey data. The results showed that turnover components dominate the three facets of beta diversity. However, the turnover contributions to phylogenetic and functional beta diversity were lower than for taxonomic beta diversity. Environmental distance had a greater influence than geographic distance, with the former uniquely explaining 15.2%–22.8% of beta diversity and the latter explaining only 1.7%–2.4%. Additionally, the explanatory power of different factors for beta diversity differed between herbs and shrubs, with environmental distance being more important for the latter. Distance‐based redundancy analysis suggested that soil total potassium content had a substantial impact on the beta diversity of three dimensions, with mean temperature of the coldest month and soil total phosphorus content having a substantial impact on taxonomic and functional beta diversity as well. Our results support that environmental sorting plays a predominant role in shaping plant community composition across QTP desert ecosystems. To maintain the plant diversity of this region, it is crucial to prioritize the conservation of its diverse environmental conditions and actively mitigate its degradation by anthropogenic pressures.

Medicinal plants provide crucial ecosystem services, especially in developing countries such as China, which harbors diverse endemic medicinal plant species with substantial cultural and economic value. Accordingly, understanding the patterns and drivers of medicinal plant distribution is critical. However, few studies have investigated the patterns and drivers of endemic medicinal plants distribution in China. Here, we linked endemic medicinal plants distribution with possible explanatory variables, i.e., paleoclimate change, contemporary climate, altitudinal range and ethnic minority human population size at the prefecture city level in China. Our results show that endemic medicinal plants are concentrated in southern China, especially in southwestern China. Notably, both endemic medicinal plant species richness and the ratio of endemic medicinal plant species richness are negatively associated with glacial-interglacial anomaly in temperature, and positively associated with contemporary precipitation and altitudinal range. In addition, we found that endemic medicinal plant species richness is positively associated with ethnic minority population sizes as well as its ratio to the overall population size. These findings suggest that the distribution of endemic medicinal plants is determined by multiple drivers. Furthermore, our findings stress that dramatic future climate changes and massive anthropogenic activities in southern China pose great challenges to the conservation of China's endemic medicinal plants.

IntroductionSpecies inventories based on various data sources have been widely used in biodiversity research, conservation policy formulation, reserve designation and biodiversity resource management. In this paper, we explored the relationships of species inventories obtained from different sources and whether they would affect the inference of biodiversity patterns and their environmental drivers.MethodsWe compiled the species inventories from different data sources (observational data including large amounts of citizen-based observational records and digitalized specimens, and avifauna data extracted from avifaunas which mainly integrated professional-based species surveys, expert knowledge and documentary records) at the prefectural level in China. Then we explored the relationships of different inventories and compared the correlations between the taxonomic, phylogenetic, functional diversity calculated from different datasets and the environmental factors.Results and DiscussionThe results showed that the avifauna datasets contributed more additional species to the combined species inventories when the species richness was relatively low and vice versa. Species inventories integrated from two different data sources formed complementary relationship rather than nested or totally different relationships. In addition, the species inventories based on observational data had no obvious disadvantage or were even better at inferring the biodiversity patterns than those based on avifauna data. The stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that the best models were the ones using the species inventories combined by observational and avifauna dataset, and the best models built with different datasets included inconsistent environmental variables. Thus, the species inventories from different data sources will indeed affect the inference of the correlations between taxonomic diversity, phylogenetic diversity, functional diversity and environmental factors. Moreover, although it may be more reliable to use a combined species inventory to analyze the relationship between diversity indices and environmental factors, individualized improvement schemes should be proposed for different data sources to fill the data gaps.

Forest mammal diversity declined rapidly due to the widespread loss and fragmentation of primary forest habitats, requiring further research on forest mammal diversity. China is a country with diverse forest types, large climate and elevation gradient, high mammal diversity, but massive anthropogenic disturbance on natural landscapes. However, few studies have assessed the associations between forest mammal diversity and these natural and anthropogenic factors. Therefore, this study tried to explore the relationships between forest mammal diversity captured by camera traps with elevation range, contemporary climate, paleoclimate change and human activities in China. We firstly collected mammal species lists from published literatures, calculated different diversity indices, and related these indices with explanatory variables using the multiple linear regression models. The results showed that forest sites with higher elevation range had higher species richness. Higher contemporary precipitation and cropland area promoted phylogenetic diversity and over-dispersed phylogenetic and functional structure. These findings suggest that the mammal diversity in Chinese forest ecosystems is mainly associated with natural environmental variables, supporting the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis, the energy availability hypothesis and tropical conservatism hypothesis. Meanwhile, the associations between forest mammal diversity and cropland area indicate that although these forest ecosystems play important role in conserving forest mammal diversity, further anthropogenic activities should be avoided.

Aim Understanding how species' traits and environmental contexts relate to extinction risk is a critical priority for ecology and conservation biology. This study aims to identify and explore factors related to extinction risk between herbaceous and woody angiosperms to facilitate more effective conservation and management strategies and understand the interactions between environmental threats and species' traits. Location China. Taxon Angiosperms. Methods We obtained a large dataset including five traits, six extrinsic variables, and 796,118 occurrence records for 14,888 Chinese angiosperms. We assessed the phylogenetic signal and used phylogenetic generalized least squares regressions to explore relationships between extinction risk, plant traits, and extrinsic variables in woody and herbaceous angiosperms. We also used phylogenetic path analysis to evaluate causal relationships among traits, climate variables, and extinction risk of different growth forms. Results The phylogenetic signal of extinction risk differed among woody and herbaceous species. Angiosperm extinction risk was mainly affected by growth form, altitude, mean annual temperature, normalized difference vegetation index, and precipitation change from 1901 to 2020. Woody species' extinction risk was strongly affected by height and precipitation, whereas extinction risk for herbaceous species was mainly affected by mean annual temperature rather than plant traits. Main conclusions Woody species were more likely to have higher extinction risks than herbaceous species under climate change and extinction threat levels varied with both plant traits and extrinsic variables. The relationships we uncovered may help identify and protect threatened plant species and the ecosystems that rely on them.

Biological invasions caused by global change have seriously threatened biodiversity distribution, and ecosystem functioning and services. Studies on the determinants of biological invasions can help to better predict and manage invasive alien species, and then efficiently conserve biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning and services. However, no studies have systematically discussed the effects of anthropogenic activities in different periods and climate factors on the distribution of invasive alien plants, invasive alien insects, and invasive alien microorganisms in China. Based on recently published information on invasive alien species, this study firstly documented the provincial distribution of these three groups in China, and then assessed their associations with these explanatory variables using ordinary least squares models and simultaneous auto-regressive models. The results showed that provincial distribution of the species richness of the three invasive alien groups showed similar patterns, i.e., high in the southeast and low in the northwest; the richness of invasive microorganisms was also higher in the northeast compared with invasive plants and invasive insects. GDP in 2000 was the anthropogenic activity index that most influenced the richness of the three taxa. Among natural factors, mean annual temperature and annual precipitation also significantly affected invasive plant richness and invasive insect richness, but did not have significant effects on invasive microbial richness. Notably, GDP in 2000 was still the most important predictor of the distribution patterns of the richness of the three taxa, even after controlling the effects of natural factors. These findings suggest that although the warm and humid climate in southeastern China is helpful to the survival and spread of invasive alien species, the intense social and economic activities in this region are also important factors in promoting invasive alien species.Therefore, China should pay more attention to the control of invasive alien species while conducting foreign trade and developing economy in the future.

Abstract Mammals are crucial for maintaining ecosystems functions and services. However, mammal diversity issues have become increasingly critical in arid and semi-arid regions due to the fragile environment and frequent human activities in recent decades. Currently, few studies have assessed the diversity and community structure of mammal assemblages in arid and semi-arid regions of China, especially from the dimension of phylogenetic and functional diversity. In this study, for the first time, taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity, as well as phylogenetic and functional structure of mammal assemblages in arid and semi-arid regions of China were linked to modern climate, altitudinal range, glacial-interglacial climate change, and plant species richness. A total of 264 mammal species (44% of all China’s mammal species) were found in arid and semi-arid regions of China. The phylogenetic and functional diversity of these species are 55% and 85% of all Chinese mammal species, respectively. The two variables most associated with mammals’ taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity were altitudinal range and plant species richness, mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation, mean annual precipitation and plant species richness, respectively. In addition, the two variables most associated with phylogenetic and functional structure were mean annual precipitation and mean annual temperature, and altitudinal range and mean annual precipitation, respectively. These findings suggest that future climate change (drying and/or warming) will have complex influence on mammal diversity in this fragile region. In addition, human-initiated afforestation may relieve the adverse effects of future climate on mammals by increasing plant richness and changing habitat structure.

The decomposition of taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional beta diversity into their turnover and nestedness components could provide novel insights into biodiversity conservation, e.g., provide implications for the Single Large Or Several Small reserves debate (SLOSS debate). Due to dramatic climate change and massive anthropogenic activities in recent decades in North China, the wetlands and the associated biodiversity in this region have declined significantly. This study applied the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional beta diversity decomposition for the first time in wetland bird communities in North China, aiming to propose scientific and comprehensive suggestions for bird diversity conservation in this region. A paired t-test was used to compare the differences between taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional turnover, and their nestedness components. In addition, a spearman correlation analysis was used to assess the associations between each explanatory variable (differences in mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation, as well as spatial distances) and each beta diversity index. A total of 546 bird species were found in 38 wetlands in North China, with three critically endangered species, 19 endangered species, 22 vulnerable species, and 61 near threatened species. The number of threatened species (critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable) found in these lakes was about 30% of all threatened species in China. The results showed that taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity among wetland bird communities in North China was mainly dominated by turnover, while functional beta diversity was mainly dominated by nestedness. Importantly, the phylogenetic and functional results showed similar patterns even after controlling for the effects of taxonomic beta diversity. In addition, the taxonomic and phylogenetic turnover was more associated with both climate variables and spatial distances than other components. The contrasting patterns among the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional decompositions of wetland bird communities in North China indicate that distinctive conservation strategies should be considered for different biodiversity dimensions. Specifically, the conservation of taxonomic and phylogenetic bird diversity in this region should focus on multiple wetlands, while the conservation of bird functional diversity should focus on a single wetland with high functional diversity.