Chiropteran metacommunity structure in the Atlantic Forest of South America

Aim

Patterns of local species diversity are shaped by dispersal ability, and associated metacommunity structure. Here we set out to test the effect of dispersal ability on metacommunity structure of bats throughout the Atlantic Forest of South America considering differences among communities, functional groups and species regarding environmental, spatial and connectance-related drivers of composition.  In addition, we aimed to illuminate phylogenetic and ecological correlates such as incidence (i.e., frequency of occurrence across sites) and wing morphology of the degree to which species respond to spatial and environmental drivers.

Location

Atlantic Forest of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.

Taxon

Phyllostomid bats

Methods

Distributional data from the Atlantic Bats dataset were compiled for 39 species at 120 sites.  Variation among bat species was partitioned into pure environmental, pure space, pure connectivity, joint and unaccounted variation fractions.  Redunda...