Leaf litter weevil richness increases with elevation in a tropical–temperate transitional forest in El Cielo Biosphere Reserve, northeastern Mexico

• DOI: 10.1111/btp.13295
• Publication Date: 2024-01-08T05:30:23Z
• Authors: Damián Villaseñor...; Milan Janda; Madai Rosas‐Mejía; Fatima Magdalena ...; Juan J. Morrone
• Keywords: Cloud forest; Plant litter; Microsite; Nestedness

Abstract We studied communities of leaf litter weevils along a 2000 m elevation gradient in El Cielo Biosphere Reserve, northeastern Mexico, an area where Nearctic and Neotropical biotas overlap. After achieving high inventory completeness (0.922 site sample coverage), we encountered 81 weevil morphospecies, which 55 were known to be specialists. The diversity increased with elevation. Beta across the elevational was mostly explained by species turnover rather than nestedness. interaction between forest structure (measured as median DBH trees) precipitation seasonality more 20% variation richness: richness showed negative relationship tree positively associated low climate variation, characteristics tropical montane cloud forests. In contrast insect taxa such ants dung beetles, attain their highest at lower elevations, peaked 1600 m. These results suggest that most are highly particular range overall pattern increasing is probably result association many habitats, occur close top mountain. Spanish available online material.