Heterogeneous distributional responses to climate warming: evidence from rodents along a subtropical elevational gradient

Background: Understanding whether species' elevational range is shifting in response to directional changes in climate and whether there is a predictable pattern in that response is one of the major challenges in ecology. However, so far very little is known about the distributional responses of subtropical species to climate change, especially for small mammals. In this study, we examined the elevational range shifts at three range points (upper and lower range limits and abundance-weighted range centre) of rodents over a 30-year period (1986 to 2014-2015), in a subtropical forest of Southwest China. We also examined the influences of four ecological traits (body mass, habitat breadth, diet and daily activity pattern) on the upslope shifts in species' abundance-weighted range centres.
Results: Despite the warming trend between 1986 and 2015, the eleven rodent species in analysis displayed heterogeneous dynamics at each of the three range points. Species which have larger body sizes an...