title: Multiscale analyses of mammal species composition--environment relationship in the contiguous USA.
abstract: Relationships between species composition and its environmental determinants are a basic objective of ecology. Such relationships are scale dependent, and predictors of species composition typically include variables such as climate, topographic, historical legacies, land uses, human population levels, and random processes. Our objective was to quantify the effect of environmental determinants on U.S. mammal composition at various spatial scales. We found that climate was the predominant factor affecting species composition, and its relative impact increased in correlation with the increase of the spatial scale. Another factor affecting species composition is land-use-land-cover. Our findings showed that its impact decreased as the spatial scale increased. We provide quantitative indication of highly significant effect of climate and land-use-land-cover variables on mammal composition at multiple scales.
authors: Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. rkent@technion.ac.il
authors: Rafi
authors: R
authors: Kent
authors: Avi
authors: A
authors: Bar-Massada
authors: Yohay
authors: Y
authors: Carmel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D055669:Ecological and Environmental Phenomena; D004777:Environment; D005843:Geography; D008322:Mammals / Q000145:classification*; D014481:United States