Intermediate Habitat Fragmentation Buffers Droughts: How Individual Energy Dynamics Mediate Mammal Community Response to Stressors.

ABSTRACT: Biodiversity is threatened by land-use and climate change. Although these processes are known to influence species survival and diversity, predicting their combined effects on communities remains challenging. We here aim to disentangle the combined effects of drought-induced resource shortage and habitat fragmentation on species coexistence. To understand how both fragmentation and droughts affect individual movement and physiology, and ultimately influence population and community dynamics, we use an individual-based metabolic modelling approach to simulate a community of small mammals. Individuals forage in the landscape to ingest energy, which they then allocate to basal maintenance, digestion, locomotion, growth, reproduction, and storage. If individuals of several species are able to

SUBMITTER: Szangolies L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12077070 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature