Data from: How characteristic is the species characteristic selection scale?

The importance of framing investigations of organism-environment
relationships to interpret patterns at relevant spatial scales is
increasingly recognized. However, most research related to environmental
relationships is single-scaled, implicitly or explicitly assuming that a
‘species characteristic selection scale’ exists. We tested the premise
that a single characteristic scale exists to understand
species-environment relationships within species by asking 1) what are the
characteristic scales of species’ relationships with environmental
predictors, and 2) is within-species, cross-predictor consistency in
characteristic scales a general phenomenon. Nebraska, USA. 2016 Birds We
used data from 86 species at >500 locations to build hierarchical
N-mixture models relating species abundance to landcover variables. By
incorporating Bayesian latent indicator scale selection, we identified the
spatial scales that best explain species-environment relationships with
each landcover predictor. We quantify the extent of cross-predictor
consistency in characteristic scales, and contrast this to the expectation
given a single species’ characteristic scale. We found no evidence for a
characteristic spatial scale explaining all abundance-environment
relationships within species, rather we found substantial variation in
scale-dependence across multiple environmental attributes. Furthermore,
33% of species displayed evidence of multiple important scales within
environmental attributes. Within species there is little evidence for a
single characteristic scale of environmental relationships and
considerable variation in species’ scale–dependencies. Because species may
respond to multiple environmental attributes at different spatial scales,
or single environmental attributes at multiple scales, we caution against
any unoptimized single-scale studies. Our results demonstrate that until a
framework is developed to predict the scales at which species respond to
environmental characteristics, multi-scale investigations must be
performed to identify and account for multiscale dependencies. Natural
selection acting on species’ response to distinct environmental
attributes, rather than natural selection acting on species’ perception of
spatial scales per se, may have shaped patterns of scale-dependency and is
an area ripe for investigation.