Elevation range and contemporary climate determine the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of forest mammals

Abstract

Forest mammal diversity declined rapidly due to the widespread loss and fragmentation of primary forest habitats, requiring further research on forest mammal diversity. China is a country with diverse forest types, large climate and elevation gradient, high mammal diversity, but massive anthropogenic disturbance on natural landscapes. However, few studies have assessed the associations between forest mammal diversity and these natural and anthropogenic factors. Therefore, this study tried to explore the relationships between forest mammal diversity captured by camera traps with elevation range, contemporary climate, paleoclimate change and human activities in China. We firstly collected mammal species lists from published literatures, calculated different diversity indices, and related these indices with explanatory variables using the multiple linear regression models. The results showed that forest sites with higher elevation range had higher species richness. Higher contemporary precipitation and cropland area promoted phylogenetic diversity and over-dispersed phylogenetic and functional structure. These findings suggest that the mammal diversity in Chinese forest ecosystems is mainly associated with natural environmental variables, supporting the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis, the energy availability hypothesis and tropical conservatism hypothesis. Meanwhile, the associations between forest mammal diversity and cropland area indicate that although these forest ecosystems play important role in conserving forest mammal diversity, further anthropogenic activities should be avoided.