Habitat heterogeneity
By examining phylogenetic signal and community structure, one of our
primary aims is to interpret the process driving rodent community
construction. Under two-tailed t-test, most of phylogenetic and
trait-based community structures in two rodent datasets exhibited random
dispersion. Considering abiotic and biotic condition within artificially
defined rodent community and the elevational pattern of community
structure per se , we prefer to believe that multiple interactions
between random and deterministic process in complex habitat have
produced random rodent community structure.
Extraordinary habitat heterogeneity in HMs has been frequently reported
in previous empirical studies (Wen et al. 2016b; Lei et
al. 2015; Lei et al. 2014). Besides, there is an indisputable
fact that the amount of microhabitats is highly related to local
biodiversity (Mehrabi et al. 2014). Within same area, a regional
band with 100 meters range along elevational gradient (RED) should
contains more microhabitats than that in local sampling transect (LSD).
This inference was supported by the pattern of species richness which is
highly related to environmental heterogeneity (Brown 2001). We found
that rodent species richness of assemblages in RED was much higher than
that in LSD. This should be one reason that phylogenetic and functional
community structure of almost all assemblages in RED exhibited random
dispersion and elevational pattern (except for
SES.PWshape in RED) (further discussions to see in the
following section).