title: Testing the Effectiveness of Environmental Variables to Explain European Terrestrial Vertebrate Species Richness across Biogeographical Scales.
abstract: We compared the effectiveness of environmental variables, and in particular of land-use indicators, to explain species richness patterns across taxonomic groups and biogeographical scales (i.e. overall pan-Europe and ecoregions within pan-Europe). Using boosted regression trees that handle non-linear relationships, we compared the relative influence (as a measure of effectiveness) of environmental variables related to climate, landscape (or habitat heterogeneity), land-use intensity or energy availability to explain European vertebrate species richness (birds, amphibians, and mammals) at the continental and ecoregion scales. We found that dominant land cover and actual evapotranspiration that relate to energy availability were the main correlates of vertebrate species richness over Europe. At the ecoregion scale, we identified four distinct groups of ecoregions where species richness was essentially associated to (i) seasonality of temperature, (ii) actual evapotranspiration and/or mean annual temperature, (iii) seasonality of precipitation, actual evapotranspiration and land cover) and (iv) and an even combination of the environmental variables. This typology of ecoregions remained valid for total vertebrate richness and the three vertebrate groups taken separately. Despite the overwhelming influence of land cover and actual evapotranspiration to explain vertebrate species richness patterns at European scale, the ranking of the main correlates of species richness varied between regions. Interestingly, landscape and land-use indicators did not stand out at the continental scale but their influence greatly increased in southern ecoregions, revealing the long-lasting human footprint on land-use-land-cover changes. Our study provides one of the first multi-scale descriptions of the variability in the ranking of correlates across several taxa.
authors.affiliation: Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000, Grenoble, France; CNRS, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Maud
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mouchet
authors.affiliation: Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Levers
authors.affiliation: Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000, Grenoble, France; CNRS, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Laure
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zupan
authors.affiliation: Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany; Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kuemmerle
authors.affiliation: Institute of Social Ecology Vienna, Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Wien, Graz, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070, Wien, Austria.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Plutzar
authors.affiliation: Institute of Social Ecology Vienna, Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Wien, Graz, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070, Wien, Austria.
authors.forename: Karlheinz
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Erb
authors.affiliation: Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000, Grenoble, France; CNRS, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lavorel
authors.affiliation: Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000, Grenoble, France; CNRS, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Wilfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Thuiller
authors.affiliation: Institute of Social Ecology Vienna, Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Wien, Graz, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070, Wien, Austria; Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Helmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Haberl
mesh_terms: D063147:Animal Distribution; D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D017753:Ecosystem; D005060:Europe