Biogeographical patterns of Chinese spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) based on a parsimony analysis of endemicity

Aim The distributions of Chinese spiders are used to form biotic regions and to infer biogeographical patterns. Location China. Methods China was initially divided into 294 quadrats of 2 degrees latitude by 2 degrees longitude. The distributions of 958 species of spiders were summarized for each quadrat. Subsequently, these quadrats were pooled into 28 areas based on topographical characteristics and to a lesser extent on the distributions of spiders. Parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE) was used to classify the 28 areas based on the shared distributional patterns of spiders. Results China was found to have seven major biogeographical regions based on the distributional patterns of spiders: Western Northern region (clade B-2: Tibetan Plateau and Inner Mongolia-Xinjiang subregions), Central Northern region (clade B-3), Eastern Northern region (clade B-4), Central region (clade C-2), Eastern Southern region (clade C-3), Western Southern region (clade C-4), and Central Southern region (clade C-5). Main conclusions The distributional patterns of Chinese spiders correspond broadly to geological provinces. A comparison of the geological provinces and the distributional patterns of spiders reveals that the spiders occur south of the geological provinces. Furthermore, a general biogeographical classification with five natural areas is suggested as follows: Tibetan Plateau, Central Northern, Eastern Northern, Western Northern (excluding Tibetan Plateau), and Southern regions.