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Amphibian community structure along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya
BACKGROUND: Species richness and composition pattern of amphibians along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya are rarely investigated. This is a first ever study in the Himalayan elevation gradient, the world’s highest mountain range and are highly sensitive to the effects of recent global...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6498630/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31046735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0234-z |
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author | Khatiwada, Janak R. Zhao, Tian Chen, Youhua Wang, Bin Xie, Feng Cannatella, David C. Jiang, Jianping |
author_facet | Khatiwada, Janak R. Zhao, Tian Chen, Youhua Wang, Bin Xie, Feng Cannatella, David C. Jiang, Jianping |
author_sort | Khatiwada, Janak R. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Species richness and composition pattern of amphibians along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya are rarely investigated. This is a first ever study in the Himalayan elevation gradient, the world’s highest mountain range and are highly sensitive to the effects of recent global changes. The aim of the present study was to assess amphibian community structure along elevation gradients and identify the potential drivers that regulate community structures. Amphibian assemblages were sampled within 3 months in both 2014 and 2015 (from May to July) using nocturnal time constrained and acoustic aids visual encounter surveys. In total, 79 transects between 78 and 4200 m asl were sampled within 2 years field work. A combination of polynomial regression, generalized linear models, hierarchical partitioning and canonical correspondence analysis were used to determine the effects of elevation and environmental variables on species richness, abundance, and composition of amphibian communities. RESULTS: Species richness and abundance declined linearly with increasing elevation, which did not support the Mid-Domain Model. Among all the environmental variables, elevation, surface area and humidity were the best predictors of species richness, abundance and composition of amphibians. The majority of amphibian species had narrow elevation ranges. There was no significant correlation between species range size and elevation gradients. However, body size significantly increased along elevation gradients, indicating that Bergmann’s rule is valid for amphibians in eastern Nepal Himalaya. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that eastern Nepal Himalaya is a hotspot in amphibian diversity, and it should be served as a baseline for management and conservation activities. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12898-019-0234-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6498630 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-64986302019-05-09 Amphibian community structure along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya Khatiwada, Janak R. Zhao, Tian Chen, Youhua Wang, Bin Xie, Feng Cannatella, David C. Jiang, Jianping BMC Ecol Research Article BACKGROUND: Species richness and composition pattern of amphibians along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya are rarely investigated. This is a first ever study in the Himalayan elevation gradient, the world’s highest mountain range and are highly sensitive to the effects of recent global changes. The aim of the present study was to assess amphibian community structure along elevation gradients and identify the potential drivers that regulate community structures. Amphibian assemblages were sampled within 3 months in both 2014 and 2015 (from May to July) using nocturnal time constrained and acoustic aids visual encounter surveys. In total, 79 transects between 78 and 4200 m asl were sampled within 2 years field work. A combination of polynomial regression, generalized linear models, hierarchical partitioning and canonical correspondence analysis were used to determine the effects of elevation and environmental variables on species richness, abundance, and composition of amphibian communities. RESULTS: Species richness and abundance declined linearly with increasing elevation, which did not support the Mid-Domain Model. Among all the environmental variables, elevation, surface area and humidity were the best predictors of species richness, abundance and composition of amphibians. The majority of amphibian species had narrow elevation ranges. There was no significant correlation between species range size and elevation gradients. However, body size significantly increased along elevation gradients, indicating that Bergmann’s rule is valid for amphibians in eastern Nepal Himalaya. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that eastern Nepal Himalaya is a hotspot in amphibian diversity, and it should be served as a baseline for management and conservation activities. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12898-019-0234-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-05-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6498630/ /pubmed/31046735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0234-z Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Khatiwada, Janak R. Zhao, Tian Chen, Youhua Wang, Bin Xie, Feng Cannatella, David C. Jiang, Jianping Amphibian community structure along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya |
title | Amphibian community structure along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya |
title_full | Amphibian community structure along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya |
title_fullStr | Amphibian community structure along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya |
title_full_unstemmed | Amphibian community structure along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya |
title_short | Amphibian community structure along elevation gradients in eastern Nepal Himalaya |
title_sort | amphibian community structure along elevation gradients in eastern nepal himalaya |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6498630/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31046735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0234-z |
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