High plant diversity and characteristic plant community structure in broad‐leaved evergreen forests on <scp>Amami‐Oshima</scp> and Tokunoshima Islands, Japan's newest natural World Heritage Site

Amami-Oshima and Tokunoshima Islands (the Amami Islands) are part of an important area for biogeography in Japan. Although the uniqueness islands' flora is well recognized, their plant diversity, including non-tree life forms, has yet to be compared with that other regions. Here, we characterize community structure Islands, analyze α β diversity patterns respect environmental factors as frequency threatened endemic species regions at higher lower latitudes. We used 5 × 100 m plots seven sites on three further north, one site south record abundance all vascular tree sizes. also census data from five Monitoring Sites 1000 Project. Three principal components variables were affecting diversity. found broad-leaved evergreen forests have resulting richness anomalies shared families among Additionally, generalized linear mixed models indicated temperature altitude affect positively. Furthermore, multiple regression distance matrices showed regional differences weather conditions Tree rareness, but herbaceous plants these parameters substantially. These results indicate two studied islands biodiversity hotspots evaluating determining forest biodiversity.