The interacting effect of habitat amount, habitat diversity and fragmentation on insect diversity along elevational gradients.

Aim: Elevational gradients are a useful approach to evaluate how environmental factors affect animal diversity. Decades of studies on the elevation-diversity gradient have revealed that this gradient varies greatly with taxa and geographic regions. One potential explanation for this may be the dependence of the relationship on landscape features. We explore the impact of fragmentation, habitat diversity and habitat amount on insect diversity (alpha and beta) and abundance along elevational gradients. We hypothesize that insect diversity and abundance will relate negatively with elevation, but positively with these landscape features. We also hypothesize that landscape features will interact in a way that the positive effect of a given variable on insect diversity may be offset by the others.
Location: Reunion Island (Indian Ocean)
Taxon: The insect order thrips (Thysanoptera)
Methods: Insects were sampled along replicated elevational gradients, and at each sampling plot landscape featur...

研究目的：海拔梯度是评估环境因子如何影响动物多样性的有效研究途径。数十年来针对海拔-多样性梯度的相关研究表明，该梯度会因类群与地理区域的不同而存在显著差异。对此现象的一种潜在解释为，二者的关联关系依赖于景观特征。本研究探讨了景观破碎化、生境多样性与生境总量沿海拔梯度对昆虫多样性（α多样性与β多样性）及种群丰度的影响。我们提出如下假说：昆虫多样性与种群丰度将随海拔升高呈负相关，而与上述景观特征呈正相关。此外我们还假设，景观特征之间会产生交互作用，即某一变量对昆虫多样性的积极效应可能被其他变量抵消。
研究区域：留尼汪岛（印度洋）
研究类群：昆虫纲缨翅目（Thysanoptera）蓟马
研究方法：本研究沿重复设置的海拔梯度开展昆虫采样，并在每个采样样地记录景观特征……