Aim Mountains provide uniquely informative systems for examining how biodiversity is distributed and identifying the causes of those patterns. Elevational patterns of species richness are well‐documented for many taxa but comparatively few studies have investigated patterns in multiple dimensions of biodiversity along mountainsides, which can reveal the underlying processes at play. Here, we use trait‐based diversity patterns...

Aim To investigate the influence of oceanic island area on speciation by small mammals, in the context of other land vertebrates. Location Mindoro Island (9,735 km 2 ), an oceanic island in the Philippines. Methods Extensive field surveys on Mindoro, followed by sequencing one mitochondrial and three nuclear genes for use in phylogenetic, population genetic and coalescent‐based analyses, and by morphometric analysis of craniod...

Aim Evaluation of the generality of the diversity–elevation relationship has highlighted effects of scale (spatial extent and grain size) on pattern perception. In contrast, the effects of scale on the attribution of drivers of diversity along elevational gradients remain largely unexplored. This is important because many causal factors have been proposed, and remotely sensed data about abiotic factors are available at increas...

Aim Our aims were to document the extent of diversification in an endemic clade of small mammals ( Apomys , subgenus Megapomys ) on a large oceanic island and to test whether speciation occurred primarily (1) along isolated elevational gradients or (2) among montane areas, as would be expected if diversification were driven by glacial cycles. Location The Philippine archipelago, particularly Luzon Island and two smaller adjace...

Changes in climate and land use can impact natural systems across all levels of ecological organization. Most documented and anticipated effects consider species' properties, including phenologies, geographic distributions, and abundances. Responses of higher‐level aggregate community or ecosystem properties have not been considered as they are assumed to be relatively stable due to compensatory dynamics and diversity–stabilit...

One expected response to observed global warming is an upslope shift of species elevational ranges. Here, we document changes in the elevational distributions of the small mammals within the Ruby Mountains in northeastern Nevada over an 80‐year interval. We quantified range shifts by comparing distributional records from recent comprehensive field surveys (2006–2008) to earlier surveys (1927–1929) conducted at identical and ne...

1 Distribution data were assembled for non‐volant small mammals along elevational gradients on mountain ranges in the western U.S.A. Elevational distributions in the species‐rich Uinta Mountains were compared to those on smaller mountain ranges with varying degrees of historical isolation from the Uintas. 2 For mountain ranges supporting the richest faunas, species richness is highest over a broad low‐ to mid‐elevation zone an...