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Faculty Advisor

Noe U. de la Sancha

Abstract

Paraguay is home to a unique precipitation gradient, receiving progressively more precipitation from east to west. It has previously been suggested that metacommunity structures for order Chiroptera assemble along precipitation gradients such as this one. Metacommunities have also been shown to assemble along other bioclimatic gradients such as temperature. This study seeks to expand upon other findings by using a larger dataset, partitioned bioclimatic variables, and more mammalian orders. It also seeks to determine how metacommunities assemble along this gradient in Paraguay, investigate the differences between different ecological metacommunity assemblages, and to further understand which bioclimatic variables have the greatest impact on these assemblages. For this study various geospatial and statistical analyses, using ArcGIS Pro and R, were performed to achieve the goals of this project. It was found that for all orders studied and all three orders combined, the east of the country generally had a greater alpha-diversity. It also found that Rodentia, Chiroptera, and all species combined exhibit a Clementsian metacommunity structure while order Didelphimorphia has a Gleasonian metacommunity structure. These metacommunities, generally form boundaries near the Rio Paraguay along the precipitation gradient, except for order Didelphimorphia which had a larger metacommunity in the north of the country, but in the south, the two smaller metacommunities formed a boundary along the Rio Paraguay and precipitation gradient as well. For all orders and all orders combined, every bioclimatic variable had a significant influence on metacommunity assembly, except for temperature seasonality for order Didelphimorphia. For Rodentia, Chiroptera, and all species combined it was determined that precipitation during the coldest month is the most influential bioclimatic variable for metacommunity assembly, for Didelphimorphia, it was longitude. Understanding the way these metacommunities are assembled and what variables influence them can also influence our understanding of how climate change and deforestation impact these species, improving conservation methods.

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