Disentangling controls on animal abundance: Prey availability, thermal habitat, and microhabitat structure.

ABSTRACT: The question of what controls animal abundance has always been fundamental to ecology, but given rapid environmental change, understanding the drivers and mechanisms governing abundance is more important than ever. Here, we determine how multidimensional environments and niches interact to determine population abundance along a tropical habitat gradient. Focusing on the endemic lizard Anolis bicaorum on the island of Utila (Honduras), we evaluate direct and indirect effects of three interacting niche axes on abundance: thermal habitat quality, structural habitat quality, and prey availability. We measured A. bicaorum abundance across a series of thirteen plots and used N-mixture models and path analysis to disentangle direct and indirect effects of these factors. Results show

SUBMITTER: Higgins EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8366856 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature