Abstract

Loss of natural habitat due to land-use change is one of the major threats to biodiversity worldwide. It not only affects the diversity of local species communities (alpha diversity) but can also lead to large-scale homogenization of community composition (reduced beta diversity) and loss of regional diversity (gamma diversity), but these effects are still rarely investigated. We assessed the impact of land-use change on taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of amphibians in Rwanda, both on the local (community-level) and regional scale (country-wide). Alpha diversity in local communities was higher in farmland than in natural habitats; however, species turnover among farmland sites was much lower than among natural sites, resulting in highly homogenized communities and reduced taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic gamma diversity in farmland across Rwanda. Amphibians found in farmland were mostly disturbance-tolerant species that are widespread in eastern Africa and beyond. In contrast, most of the regionally endemic frog species that make this region a continent-wide hotspot of amphibian diversity were found only in the natural habitats. Ongoing habitat conversion might result in further homogenization of amphibian communities across sub-Saharan Africa and the loss of regional endemism, unique evolutionary lineages, and multifunctionality.

Details

Title
Elevated alpha diversity in disturbed sites obscures regional decline and homogenization of amphibian taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity
Author
Dehling, D. Matthias 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Dehling, J. Maximilian 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland (GRID:grid.419754.a) (ISNI:0000 0001 2259 5533); Monash University, Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future, School of Biological Sciences, Victoria, Australia (GRID:grid.1002.3) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 7857); Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management, Ås, Norway (GRID:grid.19477.3c) (ISNI:0000 0004 0607 975X) 
 University of Koblenz, Department of Biology, Institute of Integrated Natural Sciences, Koblenz, Germany (GRID:grid.19477.3c) 
Pages
1710
Publication year
2023
Publication date
2023
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2771199278
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.