The Taihangshan swelled-vented frog (Feirana taihangnica), an endemic species to the Qinling Mountains, central China, has experienced a dramatic population decline over the last few decades. The aim of this work was to quantify morphological variation in F. taihangnica across the Qinling Mountains and examine environmental correlates of this variation of morphological traits. We implemented a hierarchical partitioning to estimate the independent contribution of each environmental variable on morphological variations. Temperature seasonality was the greatest contributor in variations of snout-vent length (SVL) and head width, and ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation of the lowest month was the most influential on both thigh length and tibia width. Then, we used generalized additive models to analyze the relationship between each environmental factor and morphological trait variations. Along the increasing of annual mean temperature, SVL decreased firstly and then increased, indicating no support for Bergmann’s rule. Furthermore, SVL was negatively correlated with annual precipitation, while positively with temperature seasonality. The mean UV-B of the highest and lowest months was positively and negatively correlated with head width, thigh length and tibia width, respectively. The results of this study help us to understand adaptive potential of this mountain frog species via morphological variations in the light of environmental changes.
Aim: Mountain systems offer excellent opportunities to understand β-diversity patterns and the processes driving them. However, β-diversity patterns and the underlying mechanisms that lead to dissimilarity in mountain amphibian communities across elevational gradients remain elusive. We aimed to evaluate how amphibian communities respond to environmental gradients with elevation and to explore how different ecological mechanisms drive elevational β-diversity.Location: A 2600-m elevational gradient along Mount Emei in southwestern China. Methods:We investigated elevational patterns and assembly processes of pairwise β-diversity across three dimensions (taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional) in turnover (i.e., species replacement) and nestedness-resultant (i.e., species lose/gain) for amphibians. We compared multifaceted β-diversity components and assessed the extent to which β-diversity responded to environmental and elevational distances. We also quantified the standardized effect size of β-diversity and its components using null models to examine the dynamics of niche-based and neutral processes. Results:The turnover component dominated taxonomic β-diversity, whereas nestedness was relatively more important for phylogenetic and functional dissimilarity. Moreover, taxonomic total dissimilarity and turnover were higher than their phylogenetic and functional analogues. Our results indicated a significant distance-decay effect for multifaceted β-diversity of amphibians on Mount Emei and found that effects and directions of predictors on multifaceted β-diversity were different, with temperature seasonality, annual precipitation, and elevational distance acting as the most important factors. Comparing observed patterns with null-model expectations, environmental filtering, and competitive exclusion may jointly drive elevational patterns of β-diversity.Main conclusions: Our study emphasizes the importance of partitioning taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional components of β-diversity and community assembly when determining β-diversity drivers. Although it is difficult to distinguish random communities from outcomes of niche-based processes, this work highlights the
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