Table 2 Estimated effects of the variables in the top-ranked mixed effects models on community phylogenetic diversity (standardised effect size of the mean pairwise distance – SES_mpd, and standardised effect size of the mean nearest taxon distance – SES_mntd) in woody and herbaceous communities.

Community type	Phylogenetic diversity	Top-ranked model	Variables	Coefficient	F-value	p-value
Woody	SES_mpd	latitude + latitude² + size + vegetation	Intercept	0.2437	2.9568	0.0868
			Latitude	—	37.6293	<0.0001
			Linear term	1.0241***	—	—
			Quadratic term	0.5636***	—	—
			Size	0.2065	3.1324	0.0781
			Vegetation	—	2.6106	0.0758
			Open	−3.3202*	—	—
			Semi-open	–0.3985	—	—
	SES_mntd	latitude + latitude² + size	Intercept	−2.7331	538.3517	<0.0001
			Latitude	—	13.9199	<0.0001
			Linear term	0.5869***	—	—
			Quadratic term	0.0522	—	—
			Size	0.1664	3.2111	0.0745
Herbaceous	SES_mpd	latitude + latitude² + size + realm + vegetation	Intercept	13.1456	4.3958	0.0365
			Latitude	—	5.2857	0.0053
			Linear term	0.5858	—	—
			Quadratic term	−1.4841**	—	—
			Size	−0.0714	0.9973	0.3184
			Realm	—	2.8835	0.0541
			Nearctic	−14.3492*	—	—
			Neotropical	−12.4259*	—	—
			Paleactic	−13.1274	—	—
			Vegetation	—	21.4457	<0.0001
			Open	−1.3713***	—	—
	SES_mntd	latitude + latitude² + size + realm + vegetation	Intercept	−1.3252	0.1169	0.7325
			Latitude	—	3.4684	0.0318
			Linear term	5.9833	—	—
			Quadratic term	11.0210	—	—
			Size	−0.0380	0.4748	0.4910
			Realm	—	2.8352	0.0569
			Nearctic	1.9078	—	—
			Neotropical	0.8520	—	—
			Paleactic	0.5757	—	—
			Vegetation	—	41.9209	<0.0001
			Open	−1.3868***	—	—

Variables were tested with ‘anova.lme’ function from nlme package⁷², using the marginal significance of each fixed effect variable coefficient when all other fixed effects variables are present in the model. Size = sampling unit size; vegetation = vegetation type (closed, open, semi-open); realm = biogeographic realm (Afrotropical, Australasian, Indo-Malayan, Nearctic, Neotropical, Palearctic)²⁹. Significance of individual coefficients are flagged with stars: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Estimates for biogeographic realms refer to the deviation from Afrotropical, and for vegetation type to the deviation from closed. All parameter estimates of the top-ranked models are shown in Supplementary Tables S1 and S2. Study identification was included as a random effect variable in all models.

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