COS 128-3 - Intermediate elevations support the highest tropical mammal diversity

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

8:30 AM – 8:45 AM EDT

Location: 514A

Presenting Author(s)

LB

Lydia Beaudrot, PhD

Assistant Professor
Rice University
Houston, Texas, United States

Coauthor(s)

CH

Chia Hsieh

PhD student
Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biosciences, Rice University
Houston, Texas, United States
DG

Daniel Gorczynski

Rice University
Houston, TX, United States
JT

Jade Tonos Luciano

University of California Berkeley, United States
MD

Marion L. Donald

Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, New Zealand
LF

Luke Frishkoff

University of Texas at Arlington
Arlington, TX, United States
Daniel S. Karp

Associate Professor
University of California, Davis
Davis, California, United States
RS

Rahel Sollmann

University of California Davis, United States
JL

Jean-Philippe Lessard, n/a

Concordia University, Quebec, Canada
JA

Jorge Ahumada

Conservation International, United States
PA

Patricia Alvarez-Loayza

Duke University, United States
KB

Kelly Boekee

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Ancon, Republic of Panama, Panama
AC

Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz

University of Nottingham Malaysia, Malaysia
SE

Santiago Espinosa

Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Mexico
KG

Krisna Gajapersad

Conservation International Suriname, United States
MG

Marcella Guimaraes Moreira Lima

Universidade Federal do Pará, Brazil
MH

Mahandry Hugues Andrianarisoa

Centre ValBio, Madagascar
JH

Johanna Hurtado Asiaiza

Organization for Tropical Studies, Costa Rica
PJ

Patrick A. Jansen

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Ancon, Republic of Panama; Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands
SJ

Steig E. Johnson

Associate Professor
University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
CK

Charles Kayijamahe

International Gorilla Conservation Programme, Rwanda
BM

Badru Mugerwa

Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Germany
TO

Timothy O'Brien

Wildlife Conservation Society, United States
FR

Francesco Rovero

University of Florence, Italy
JS

Julia Salvador

Wildlife Conservation Society, Ecuador
Fernanda Santos

R&D Associate Staff
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States
DS

Douglas Sheil

Wageningen University, Netherlands
WS

Wilson Spironello

Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Brazil

Background/Question/Methods

Elevation is often considered an important driver of biodiversity patterns, with habitat zonation across elevation corresponding to different species assemblages. As a result, intermediate elevations may have higher richness due to their ability to host species from multiple elevational zones. However, most mammal studies on species richness-elevation relationship have focused on small mammals and showed either hump-shaped or linear relationships in temperate systems. It is therefore unclear how tropical mammal species richness, particularly for larger bodied species, varies with elevation. We used camera trap data for terrestrial mammals from 14 protected areas monitored by the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) Network. We employed a multi-species occupancy model to estimate each species’ occupancy as a function of camera-trap specific elevation for each protected area.

Results/Conclusions

We found that elevation was a significant predictor of community-level occupancy in many of the protected areas. Importantly, occupancy was highest at intermediate elevations in multiple protected areas as demonstrated by significant negative quadratic elevation terms, which provides evidence for the first time that community-level occupancy is generally highest at intermediate elevations for medium to large-bodied mammals in tropical regions. Mid-elevational occupancy peaks were stronger for protected areas in which camera traps sampled longer elevational gradients. Thus, our results from protected areas that cover a range of elevation gradients support the claim that relationships between elevation and species richness change from linear to quadratic as longer elevational gradients are sampled.