Human pressures predict species' geographic range size better than biological traits
Supporting Information
Table S1 List of additional biological variables used for the taxonomic groups analysis (Fig. S6)
and not described in Table 1 of the article. All variables, apart from dispersal, were obtained from:
Jones et al. 2009; http://www.utheria.org/home.aspx; Tacutu et al. (2013). Dispersal data from
Santini et al. (2013).
Variable
AgeEyeOp
SexMat
DispAge
AgeFirstBir
AvgLifSpan
MaxLongev
ActCycle
Description
Age at eye opening
Sexual Maturity age
Age at which dispersal occurs
Age at first birth
Average life span
Maximum recorded longevity
Activity cycle categorised as Diurnal, Nocturnal or Mixed (i.e.
Nocturnal/Crepuscular, Diurnal/Crepuscular, Crepuscular or Cathemeral)
InterbInt
Interval between successive breeding events
LittYr
Number of litters per year
LittSize
Size of the litter
DietBrea
Number of diets category (i.e. vertebrate, invertebrate, fruit,
flowers/nectar/pollen, leaves/branches/bark, seeds, grass and roots/tubers)
HabBrea
Number of habitat layers used by the species (i.e. above ground dwelling,
aquatic, fossorial and ground dwelling)
SocGrpSize
Size of the social group
SpecPopDens
Average population density of the species
HomeRange
Home range size
NeoBodySize
Neonatal Body mass
WeanBodySize
Body size at weaning age
NeoHeadBodLen Head-Body length in neonates
AdHeadBodLen Head-Body length in adults
ForearmLen
Total length from elbow to wrist of adult
MedDisp
Median Dispersal distance
MeanDisp
Mean Dispersal distance
Max_Disp
Maximum Dispersal distance
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Fig. S1 Global maps of human pressure variables used to predict range size: (a) human impact
index (index range: 0-64), (b), human population density in year 2000 (density range: 0-123,083
person/km2), (c) human population growth calculated as "(population in 2010 - population in 1990)
/ population in 1990" (range: -1 to 42, reported at a 50 km resolution for representation purposes),
(d) level of accessibility from humans calculated as travel time from major cities (travel time range,
low to high accessibility: 82,365 - 0 minutes)
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Fig. S2 Histogram plot of range-size values of terrestrial mammal species, measured as log10(km2).
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Fig. S3 Radial plot representing the relative importance (along radial axes) of each predictor
variable in the global random forest model predicting species range size. restricted-ranged species those with a range size <1,000 km2 - were excluded from this analysis.
4
Fig. S4 Partial plots of the relationship between human pressure variables (x axes) and species
geographic range size (y axes). The variables distribution tails were removed for representation
purposes (i.e. percentiles in the range 2.5-97.5 were reported ). The pressure variables are: (A)
human impact index, (B), human population density in year 2000 (n/km2), (C) human population
growth between 1990-2010, (D) level of accessibility from humans (travel time from major cities).
Restricted-ranged species - those with a range size <1,000 km2- were excluded from this analysis.
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Fig. S5 Partial plots of the relationship between human population growth (x axis) and range size (y
axis). Species with a range size <100,000 km2, were excluded from this analysis.
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Fig. S6 Heatmap of the relative importance of variables in predicting species geographic range size
in different taxonomic groups. The relative importance of each variable (y axis) for each group (x
axis) is represented using a yellow-to-red- gradient. Numbers on top of each group name represent
the overall performance (% variance explained) of the random forest model for the group. This
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analysis include all biological variables with >20% available information within each group, hence
a given variable may be used only for some of the groups. "X" symbols represent variables not used
for a group (i.e. due to low data coverage).
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Supporting References
Jones KE, Bielby J, Cardillo M, Fritz S a., O’Dell J, et al. (2009) PanTHERIA: a species-level
database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals.
Ecology 90: 2648.
Santini L, Di Marco M, Visconti P, Baisero D, Boitani L,Rondinini C (2013) Ecological correlates
of dispersal distance in terrestrial mammals. Hystrix 24: 181–186. doi:10.4404/hystrix-24.28746.
Tacutu R, Craig T, Budovsky A (2013) Human Ageing Genomic Resources: Integrated databases
and tools for the biology and genetics of ageing. Nucleic acid Res 41: 1027–1033.
doi:10.1093/nar/gks1155.
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