Climate and food diversity as drivers of mammal diversity in Inner Mongolia.

Gang Feng,Hui Yan,Xueting Yang

doi:10.1002/ece3.4908

Abstract

Traditionally, geographical distribution of biodiversity is assumed to be codetermined by multiple factors, for example, temperature, precipitation, environmental heterogeneity, and biotic interactions. However, few studies have simultaneously compared the relative roles of these factors in shaping the mammal diversity patterns for different feeding groups, that is, herbivores, insectivores, and carnivores. In this study, we assessed the relations between mammal diversity and current climate (mean annual temperature and precipitation), altitudinal range as well as mammal's food diversity in Inner Mongolia. Our results showed that the species richness for the three feeding guilds of mammals consistently increased with their food diversity, that is, species richness of plants, insects, and rodents. Mammal diversity also significantly decreased with mean annual temperature and precipitation. Random Forest models indicated that climate and food diversity were always included in the combinations of variables most associated with mammal diversity. Our findings suggest that while climate is an important predictor of large scale distribution of mammal diversity, biotic interactions, that is, food diversity, could also play important roles.

Highlights

Biodiversity distribution at macro‐ecological scale and its multiple drivers is a key question in ecology and biogeogra‐ phy (Fine, 2015; Pärtel, Bennett, & Zobel, 2016; Staniczenko, Sivasubramaniam, Suttle, & Pearson, 2017)
The single variable ordinary least squares (OLS) models and structural equation mod‐ els showed that species richness of herbivores, insectivores, and carnivores significantly increased with their food diversity, that is, species richness of plants, insects, and rodents, and significantly decreased with mean annual tem‐ perature (MAT) and mean annual precipita‐ tion (MAP) (Figures 2 and 3; Table 1)
Our study is the first attempt to assess the patterns and multiple drivers of geographical distribution of mammal diversity focusing in Inner Mongolia, a region with diverse vegetation types and high biodiversity

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

Biodiversity distribution at macro‐ecological scale and its multiple drivers is a key question in ecology and biogeogra‐ phy (Fine, 2015; Pärtel, Bennett, & Zobel, 2016; Staniczenko, Sivasubramaniam, Suttle, & Pearson, 2017). Regional and histori‐ cal factors, for example, current climate and paleoclimate change, have been widely linked with geographical distribution of mam‐ mal diversity (Samuels & Hopkins, 2017; Svenning, Fløjgaard, & Baselga, 2011). Few studies have simultaneously assessed the relative roles of these factors in shaping mammal distribution at large scales, especially for different feeding groups. No study has quantitatively assessed the patterns and drivers of geographical distribution of mammal di‐ versity in this region. We assessed the association between food diversity, altitudi‐ nal range, current climate, and diversity of the three groups of mammals, respectively. | 2143 would be positively associated with mammal diversity through the network connecting these interacting species and would codeter‐ mine the geographical distribution of mammal diversity with cur‐ rent climate and altitudinal range

| MATERIALS AND METHODS

| DISCUSSION

Findings

| CONCLUSIONS