Study location and datasets
The HMs (97º-106 ºE, 21º-35ºN) lies in the southwest of China, covering
most part of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces as well as the east part of
Tibet. Aiming to detect the role of trait conservatism, functional role
of trait as well as habitat complexity in assembling rodent communities,
we extracted two rodent datasets based on local sampling survey (local
sampling dataset, LSD) and regional records along elevation (regional
elevation-range dataset, RED). LSD was extracted from 15 field surveys
along local elevational gradient in HMs, including 80 sampling sites
containing 45 rodent species (20 genera, 5 families) (Du et al.2017). Six sampling sites in LSD having been conducted within farmland
were excluded in Du et al. (2017) to get rid of anthropic impacts
on elevational pattern of rodent community structure. In this work,
farmland sampling sites were included within LSD, as we also expected to
compare patterns and underlying processes with those in RED (which
contains all typical vegetation types within HMs).
Regional
elevation-range dataset (RED) were extracted from historical studies,
local surveys and museum records within HMs region (Wen et al.2016a; Wen et al. 2016b). As some of historical collections were
conducted according to administrative divisions (i.e., province and
county), species surviving within non-typical montane habitats (i.e.,
arid and semi-arid desert) have been recorded within HMs. In order to
get rid of this sampling bias in RED, we further conducted data cleaning
and excluded species in non-typical habitats at the edges of HMs. The
elevational scope in this work ranged from the base of HMs (<
1000 m) to 5000 m. The base zones below 1000 m were treated as one
elevational band, as many historical records below 1000 m were hard been
further divided. Areas above 1000 m were equally divided into 100-m
elevation bands (i.e., 1000m~ 1100m;
1100m~ 1200m… 4900m~ 5000m). In
total, RED contained 94 rodent species (46 genera, 7 families)
distributing within 41 elevational bands in HMs.
The
taxonomy of rodent species followed Wilson and Reeder (2005), except
that we recognize Niviventer ling as being distinct from N.
confucianus (Du et al. 2017 and their reference).