Beyond species richness: Habitat fragmentation reduces community occupancy and functional richness of mountain forest mammals

	Beyond species richness: Habitat fragmentation reduces community occupancy and functional richness of mountain forest mammals
	Li, XY; Hu, WQ; Onditi, KO; Hu, ZC; Liu, Y; Wang, HJ; Jiang, XL
	2026
发表期刊	Biol. Conserv.
ISSN	0006-3207
卷号	318
摘要	Forest fragmentation has critical and ongoing impacts on multiple facets of biodiversity. Yet, the specific impacts of fragmentation on animal communities, especially beyond species richness, remain less understood. Here, we addressed the question of how forest fragmentation affects both community occupancy (i.e., average occupancy across the species community) and functional richness of 39 medium- and large-sized mammals, accounting for imperfect detection and collinearity among landscape metrics. We conducted an intensive camera-trapping survey (731 camera traps, 79,108 trap nights) across a broad gradient of forest fragmentation in Southwest China. We investigated the relationships between fragmentation (quantified as patch density) and mammalian community occupancy, species richness, and functional richness for medium- to large-bodied mammals. We applied Bayesian hierarchical multispecies occupancy models to account for imperfect detection and assess both individual species and community-level responses. Additionally, we used piecewise structural equation modeling to disentangle the direct effects of fragmentation from those of forest cover, addressing collinearity among landscape metrics. Our results demonstrate that increased forest fragmentation significantly reduces both community occupancy and functional richness. Notably, functional richness continually decreased even when species richness leveled out along gradients of fragmentation, indicating that forest fragmentation filters for species that are more functionally similar, thus homogenizing functional diversity. Structural equation modeling consistently revealed forest fragmentation as a stronger determinant of both species and functional richness compared to forest cover, underscoring the importance of habitat configuration in determining species distributions and functional diversity of forest-dwelling mammals. At the species level, 85% of mammals exhibited a negative response to fragmentation, with nocturnal species and those with narrower habitat width being particularly sensitive. We conclude that forest fragmentation fundamentally impacts not just where species occur, but also the functional traits present within a community. Our findings highlight the importance of retaining large, contiguous forest areas in mountain landscapes for supporting diverse mammalian communities.
收录类别	SCIE
语种	英语
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://ir.kiz.ac.cn/handle/152453/14859
专题	科研部门_兽类生态与进化（蒋学龙）
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Li, XY,Hu, WQ,Onditi, KO,et al. Beyond species richness: Habitat fragmentation reduces community occupancy and functional richness of mountain forest mammals[J]. Biol. Conserv.,2026,318.
APA	Li, XY.,Hu, WQ.,Onditi, KO.,Hu, ZC.,Liu, Y.,...&Jiang, XL.(2026).Beyond species richness: Habitat fragmentation reduces community occupancy and functional richness of mountain forest mammals.Biol. Conserv.,318.
MLA	Li, XY,et al."Beyond species richness: Habitat fragmentation reduces community occupancy and functional richness of mountain forest mammals".Biol. Conserv. 318(2026).

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2026070105.pdf（5193KB）	期刊论文	出版稿	开放获取	CC BY-NC-SA	请求全文