Illustration showing the relationship between plant species richness and elevation across three Himalayan sites and their combined pattern. The top panel depicts a stylized mountain range labeled with a legend for “Mid-Domain Effect” (gray dashed line) and “Species Richness” (solid blue line). Below, four small plots display species richness versus elevation for: (1) Morni Hills (300–1500 m, yellow), showing a unimodal increase and decline in richness; (2) Chail Wildlife Sanctuary (900–2100 m, green), showing a similar mid-elevation peak; (3) Churdhar Wildlife Sanctuary (1600–3600 m, pink), showing a gradual decline with elevation; and (4) all sites combined (300–3600 m, blue), showing a pronounced hump-shaped richness pattern centered at mid-elevations. The gray dashed curves represent predicted richness from the mid-domain effect, with shaded confidence bands.

Four-panel figure showing relationships between plant species richness and elevation across three Himalayan sites and their combined dataset. Each panel displays observed species richness (colored circles with solid fitted lines) compared with predicted values from the mid-domain effect (gray dashed lines with shaded confidence bands). (a) Morni Hills (yellow): species richness increases with elevation and peaks near mid-elevations (~900 m) before declining. (b) Chail Wildlife Sanctuary (green): species richness peaks around 1500 m with a hump-shaped pattern. (c) Churdhar Wildlife Sanctuary (pink): species richness declines steadily with elevation from ~1600 m to 3500 m. (d) All sites combined (blue): a pronounced unimodal, mid-elevation peak in richness around 1200–1500 m. Gray dashed lines represent mid-domain effect predictions, and shaded regions indicate uncertainty.

Illustration showing the relationship between plant species richness and elevation across three Himalayan sites and their combined pattern. The top panel depicts a stylized mountain range labeled with a legend for “Mid-Domain Effect” (gray dashed line) and “Species Richness” (solid blue line). Below, four small plots display species richness versus elevation for: (1) Morni Hills (300–1500 m, yellow), showing a unimodal increase and decline in richness; (2) Chail Wildlife Sanctuary (900–2100 m, green), showing a similar mid-elevation peak; (3) Churdhar Wildlife Sanctuary (1600–3600 m, pink), showing a gradual decline with elevation; and (4) all sites combined (300–3600 m, blue), showing a pronounced hump-shaped richness pattern centered at mid-elevations. The gray dashed curves represent predicted richness from the mid-domain effect, with shaded confidence bands.