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Context. Biodiversity patterns depend on landscape structure, but the spatial scale at which such dependence is strongest (scale of effect, SoE) remains poorly understood, especially for elusive species such as arboreal mammals.Objectives. We assessed the SoE in arboreal mammals and evaluated whether it depends on which biological responses and landscape variables are measured. We expected the number of species to be more reliant on spatial patterns of larger landscapes than relative abundance, especially when considering larger bodied species, and connectivity-related landscape variables. Methods. We sampled arboreal mammals during one year using camera traps placed in 100 trees within 20 forest patches in the Lacandona rainforest, Mexico. We measured forest cover, matrix openness, patch density, and edge density within 13 concentric buffers to identify the SoE of each landscape variable on the number of species, total abundance, and species-specific abundance.Results. Unexpectedly, edge density tended to have larger SoE than forest cover and matrix openness, and the SoE did not differ between number of species and total abundance. Yet, the SoE tended to be positively related to body mass.Conclusions. Mammal responses to edge density seem to be regulated by large-scale processes, such as an increasing dispersal in landscapes with higher edge density, and not by local-scale processes (e.g. edge effects). Species richness and total abundance seem to be moderated by ecological processes acting across similar spatial scales, but the SoE tends to increase with body mass. Therefore, conservation plans for larger mammals should be implemented across larger spatial extents. |
