Low elevation species richness and biodiversity in the eastern Mojave desert, Clark County

Global loss of biodiversity is a well-known concern for conservationists
and managers, but detailed spatial maps of local biodiversity for use by
local managers are often lacking. We used a suite of existing species
distribution models to calculate spatial variation in low-elevation
species richness across Clark County, Nevada, USA, comprising much of the
eastern Mojave Desert. We then used a macroecological model to estimate
true latent low-elevation biodiversity across the county, correcting for
potential taxonomic bias in the estimates of species richness. We found
that species richness and biodiversity tended to be higher along the Muddy
and Virgin rivers and in the Las Vegas valley. Biodiversity was positively
associated with flat, rocky landforms, low elevation, late seasonal
greenup, and lower differences between winter and summer temperatures. We
present a brief example for local managers to apply the new publicly
available low-elevation species richness and biodiversity spatial layers.