Species diversity and community composition of non-volant small mammals in Heizhugou region, Sichuan Province

Yue, Xiantao; Zhang, Taxing; Li, Dou; Liu, Jie; Ran, Jianghong; Mao, Yeming; Ma, Xiaolong; Zhang, Yao

doi:10.17520/biods.2019385

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“…The detailed sampling protocols can be found in published works (Ma et al 2010, Wen et al 2014, 2017, Du et al 2021). Along the Heizhugou gradient we surveyed a total of eight altitudinal sites from 1537 to 3830 m. The number of sampling quatrats varied from 6 to 41 across the sites, and each quatrat was composed of 49 snap traps that were evenly arranged in seven rows (7 × 7) and spaced 3–5 m apart (Yue et al 2020). For the 14 altitudinal gradients investigated by other research teams, similar sampling techniques (quadrats, trap nights) were applied to survey the local small mammal communities.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Altitudinal dispersal process drives community assembly of montane small mammals

Wen

Feijó

et al. 2022

Ecography

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Montane small mammals are subjected to strong forces of dispersal limitation and habitat filtering that mainly operate on their community structures along the altitudinal direction. However, so far little is known about the relative contributions of dispersal and niche processes to their community assembly. By applying the newly proposed PER-SIMPER/DNCI (dispersal-niche continuum index) framework to small mammal occurrence data collected from 21 extensive altitudinal gradients, we quantitatively assessed the relative importance of dispersal and niche processes on mammalian community assembly in a large mountainous region of southwestern China. We compared the pairwise DNCI values among assemblages from low, middle and high altitudinal zones and overall DNCI values between glires and insectivores that differ in dispersal abilities to test three explicit (altitudinal connectivity, environmental difference and dispersal ability) hypotheses. The overall DNCI values for all small mammal species combined (−12.7 ± 0.4, 90 species), glires (−12.8 ± 0.5, 56 species) and insectivores (−13.5 ± 1.4, 34 species) values were all negative, while insectivores showed a lower value than glires. For both all species combined and glires, we found a lower pairwise DNCI value between the low and high altitudinal zones than that between the other two pairs of altitudinal zones. Our study indicated that an altitudinal dispersal process dominates the taxonomic composition of small mammal assemblages in this region. Importantly, the results reinforced the idea that community structures of less vagile taxa are more subject to dispersal limitation; and yet another idea that assemblages from further altitudinal areas are more differentiated by dispersal process was only supported in glires and all species combined. Community biologists should, therefore, pay attention to recent climate-induced upward range shifts by montane species, which may dramatically alter their community structures in different altitudinal zones through dynamics of immigration and mountaintop extinction.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We used a published presence-absence dataset of small mammals in the MRSC (contains species occurrence information along 20 altitudinal gradients, Wen et al 2018) and updated it by including the data collected along the Heizhugou gradient, southern Sichuan Province (Yue et al 2020). Each of the 21 gradients (Fig.…”

Section: Small Mammal Datasetmentioning

confidence: 99%