Alpine climate and soils heterogeneity data and simulation results

We developed metrics of climatic and edaphic heterogeneity, using
principal components analyses and the shoelace algorithm, and added
elevation range. We applied commonality analysis to partition the unique
and shared explanation of the observed vascular plant species richness
 among selected metrics. A simulation was developed to separate
the relative importance of area and heterogeneity at different extents and
representations of spatial nestedness, and the heterogeneity – effective
area tradeoff was evaluated by altering spatial discreteness. The
simulations revealed that heterogeneity was consistently more important,
but less so among smaller areas. This qualitative pattern was maintained
regardless of whether and how nestedness was represented. The
heterogeneity – effective area tradeoff occurred in a few simulations of
more discrete habitats.