Effects of land use and climate change on functional and phylogenetic diversity of terrestrial vertebrates in a Himalayan biodiversity hotspot

Aim: Land use and climate change interact to impact functional and phylogenetic diversity globally, but this pattern is largely unknown in the eastern Himalayas. We aim to discern the response of community diversity and structure of terrestrial mammals and birds to anthropogenic land use and climate change in this hitherto understudied landscape. Location: Himalayan biodiversity hotspot, Bhutan
Methods: We used camera trap and point-count transect data to estimate taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity while accounting for detectability. We calculated the abundance-weighted standardised effect sizes (ses) of mean pairwise distance and mean nearest taxon distance. The ses metrics were regressed against land use (agriculture and forest) and climate (temperature and precipitation) variables using linear mixed effect models.
Results: Community diversity declined with agriculture in both groups. Mammal diversity was higher farther from the settlement but birds remained indifferent..., Mammal: camera trap survey (refer to Penjor et al., 2018 (EcoEvol), 2019 (BioCon), 2020 (EcolInd) for details.
Bird: transect, point count survey, repeated observation (Penjor et al., 2021, J Applied Ecology).
Detection, non-detection data (binary), occupancy models (MacKenzie et al., 2002 Ecol), Follow the script to run MSOM, obtain detection-corrected site x species matrix (z-matrix) and use this matrix to calculate FD and PD (eg., Chapman et al., 2018, J Applied Ecol).