Environmental correlates of richness, community composition, and functional traits of terrestrial birds and mammals in a
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Environmental correlates of richness, community composition, and functional traits of terrestrial birds and mammals in a fragmented tropical landscape Rachel N. Cook . Tadeo Ramirez-Parada . Luke Browne . Mike Ellis . Jordan Karubian
Received: 1 December 2019 / Accepted: 15 September 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Context Tropical forest loss and fragmentation and the associated loss in species diversity are increasing in both magnitude and scope. Much attention has been paid to how attributes of forest fragments, such as area and forest structure, impact the diversity and functional composition of vertebrate communities, while more recent work has begun to consider the importance of landscape-level variables, such as surrounding tree cover. Yet, the relative impacts of these factors on species diversity and functional composition remain unclear, particularly among under-studied taxonomic groups.
Rachel N. Cook and Tadeo Ramirez-Parada contributed equally to this study.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01123-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. R. N. Cook M. Ellis J. Karubian (&) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA e-mail: [email protected] T. Ramirez-Parada Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Objectives We quantified how species richness, community composition, and functional traits of terrestrial birds and mammals are associated with variation in fragment area, elevation, habitat structure and surrounding tree cover. Our goal was to determine the degree to which these diverse explanatory variables contribute to species diversity. Methods We used motion-activated camera traps to sample terrestrial birds and mammals in 22 forest fragments in northwestern Ecuador. We used a hierarchical multi-species occupancy model accounting for imperfect species detection to estimate species richness and species composition differences among fragments, weighted multiple regression and distance matrix regression to assess covariates of richness and composition, and an RLQ ordination to assess covariation of environmental conditions and species traits. Results Terrestrial mammals and birds exhibited similar relationships to key environmental variables, but also showed guild-specific differences. Elevation
L. Browne J. Karubian Foundation for the Conservation of the Tropical Andes, Quito, Ecuador L. Browne School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
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Landscape Ecol
was significantly associated with differences in species richness and community composition for both groups. Forest cover in the surrounding matrix was associated with higher species richness and changes in community composition in mammals, but not terrestrial birds. Canopy openness showed a positive associat
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