Relating mammal species richness to landscape patterns across multiple spatial scales

Abstract

Context: Understanding the relationships between spatial pattern, spatial scale and biodiversity can help ecologists to assess the impacts of environmental change and inform management plans. Spatial pattern research has often focussed on the effect of modified landscapes on species diversity. However, few studies have examined species responses to spatial pattern from other sources, including those which vary over time, such as fire. Objectives: We investigated the effect of composition and configuration for topographic, ecological and disturbance factors on mammal species richness. In addition, we examined whether the magnitude and predictive strength of the relationship with richness vari..