Climate change affects distribution and persistence of species. However, forecasting species＇ re-sponses to these changes requires long-term data series that are often lacking in ecological studies.We used 15 years o...Climate change affects distribution and persistence of species. However, forecasting species＇ re-sponses to these changes requires long-term data series that are often lacking in ecological studies.We used 15 years of small mammal trapping data collected between 1978 and 2015 in 3 areas atDoSana National Park （southwest Spain） to （i） describe changes in species composition and （ii） test theassociation between local climate conditions and size of small mammal populations. Overall, 5 specieswere captured： wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus, algerian mouse Mus spretus, greater white-toothed shrew Crocidura russula, garden dormouse Eliomys quercinus, and black rat Rattus rattus. Thetemporal pattern in the proportion of captures of each species suggests that the small mammal diver-sity declined with time. Although the larger species （e.g., E. quercinus）, better adapted to colder cli-mate, have disappeared from our trapping records, M. spretus, a small species inhabiting southwestEurope and the Mediterranean coast of Africa, currently is almost the only trapped species. We used 2-level hierarchical models to separate changes in abundance from changes in probability of captureusing records of A. sylvaticus in all 3 areas and of Mo spretus in 1. We found that heavy rainfall and lowtemperatures were positively related to abundance of A. sylvaticus, and that the number of extremelyhot days was negatively related to abundance of M. spretus. Despite other mechanisms are likely to beinvolved, our findings support the importance of climate for the distribution and persistence of thesespecies and raise conservation concerns about potential cascading effects in the Donana ecosystem.展开更多
文摘Climate change affects distribution and persistence of species. However, forecasting species＇ re-sponses to these changes requires long-term data series that are often lacking in ecological studies.We used 15 years of small mammal trapping data collected between 1978 and 2015 in 3 areas atDoSana National Park （southwest Spain） to （i） describe changes in species composition and （ii） test theassociation between local climate conditions and size of small mammal populations. Overall, 5 specieswere captured： wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus, algerian mouse Mus spretus, greater white-toothed shrew Crocidura russula, garden dormouse Eliomys quercinus, and black rat Rattus rattus. Thetemporal pattern in the proportion of captures of each species suggests that the small mammal diver-sity declined with time. Although the larger species （e.g., E. quercinus）, better adapted to colder cli-mate, have disappeared from our trapping records, M. spretus, a small species inhabiting southwestEurope and the Mediterranean coast of Africa, currently is almost the only trapped species. We used 2-level hierarchical models to separate changes in abundance from changes in probability of captureusing records of A. sylvaticus in all 3 areas and of Mo spretus in 1. We found that heavy rainfall and lowtemperatures were positively related to abundance of A. sylvaticus, and that the number of extremelyhot days was negatively related to abundance of M. spretus. Despite other mechanisms are likely to beinvolved, our findings support the importance of climate for the distribution and persistence of thesespecies and raise conservation concerns about potential cascading effects in the Donana ecosystem.
