Abstract
Aim Area and environmental heterogeneity together explain most patterns of species diversity but disentangling their relative importance has been difficult. Here, we empirically examined this relationship and parsed their relative importance, and that of the heterogeneity—effective area trade‐off, at different spatial scales and in different spatial representations in simulations. Location Alpine grasslands of 23 mountain ranges of southern and central Europe. Taxon Vascular plants. Methods We developed metrics of climatic and edaphic heterogeneity, using principal components analyses and the shoelace algorithm, and added elevation range. We applied commonality analysis to partition the unique and shared explanation of the observed vascular plant species richness among selected metrics. A simulation was developed to separate the relative importance of area and heterogeneity at different extents and representations of spatial nestedness, and the heterogeneity—effective area trade‐off was evaluated by altering spatial discreteness. Results The explanation of the observed regional richness was shared by area and heterogeneity. The simulation revealed that heterogeneity was consistently more important, but less so among smaller areas. This qualitative pattern was maintained regardless of whether and how nestedness was represented. The heterogeneity–effective area trade‐off occurred in a few simulations of more discrete habitats. Main Conclusions Scale dependence may account for discrepancies among past empirical studies wherein environmental heterogeneity has usually outweighed area in the explanation of species richness; and it is not affected by nestedness. The potential heterogeneity–effective area trade‐off may be limited to locations where the environmental heterogeneity is quite discrete or if the added environment is beyond the niches of any species in the potential pool. The significant importance of area per se in small territories indicates that microrefugia, even with an unlikely full range of heterogeneity, will suffer local extinctions in the face of climate change.