Joint effects of environmental filtering and dispersal limitation on species assemblage of the Tibetan Plateau

Aim Mountains harbour a rich and non-random cluster of species, yet knowledge on the species’ biological attributes that support species coexistence in the montane community is limited. Here, we investigated the association of species occurrence on the Tibetan Plateau with species’ morphological, ecological or evolutionary constraints.
Location Tibetan Plateau (TP)
Taxon Mammals and birds
Methods We tested whether species occurrence on the TP correlates with morphological, ecological, or evolutionary constraints using the spatial distribution, phylogeny, dispersal ability, and thermal niche property data for 1,353 terrestrial vertebrates (383 mammals and 970 birds). We used standard (non-phylogenetic) and phylogenetic logistic regressions to disentangle the relative contributions of these attributes of species in explaining the species occurrence on the TP. We assessed the geographical patterns of community structures on the TP and fit linear mixed models to explore the underlying eco-e...