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Patterns of community composition in two tropical tree frog assemblages: separating spatial structure and environmental effects in disturbed and undisturbed forests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

Raffael Ernst  and
Mark-Oliver Rödel
Raffael Ernst*
Affiliation:
Department of Biodiversity Dynamics, TU Berlin, Rothenburgstr. 12, 12165 Berlin, Germany
Mark-Oliver Rödel
Affiliation:
Department of Biodiversity Dynamics, TU Berlin, Rothenburgstr. 12, 12165 Berlin, Germany
*
1Corresponding author. Email: ernst@biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de
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Abstract:

An on-going controversy in community ecology involves the debate about the many factors that affect the assembly and composition of a given species assemblage. Theory suggests that community composition is influenced by environmental gradients or biotic processes. This study examines patterns of community composition in two tropical tree frog assemblages of primary and exploited lowland rain-forest sites in the Guiana Shield area of central Guyana, South America and the Upper Guinean rain-forest block of south-western Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa. We tested community composition and species abundance data of two adult tree frog communities collected on 21 standardized transects during a period of 5 y for evidence of spatial correlation in community composition. We applied simple and partial Mantel tests to separate the effects of environmental variables, spatial distance and spatial autocorrelation on community composition. Whenever environmental effects were accounted for, we found significant positive spatial correlation of community composition. All assemblages appeared to be spatially structured, i.e. sites in close proximity had similar species assemblages. However, spatially structured environmental variation (autocorrelation) did not account for the spatial structure of species incidence. Environmental factors did not prove to be significant predictors of species incidence in any of the assemblages analysed, even if we controlled for spatial effects. Observed correlation patterns of species composition were consistent within respective realms and disturbance regimes. Moreover, general correlation patterns were consistent between geographic regions. These results are in contrast to previously published results from a study on leaf-litter anurans and indicate that group-specific differences must not be neglected when analysing patterns of species composition in anurans as they may drastically alter the outcome of the analysis.

Keywords

community compositiondisturbanceGuyanaIvory Coastnorthern South Americatree frogstropical rain forestsspatial structureWest Africa
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , March 2008 , pp. 111 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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