DOI: 10.5061/dryad.37s4h
title: Data from: Biodiversity extinction thresholds are modulated by matrix type

description: Biodiversity extinction thresholds are abrupt declines in biological
 diversity that occur with habitat loss, associated with a decline in
 habitat connectivity. Matrix quality should influence the location of
 thresholds along habitat loss gradients through its effects on
 connectivity; however these relationships have seldom been explored
 empirically. Using field data from 23 independent 1,254 ha landscapes in
 the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, we evaluated how tropical avian
 biodiversity responds to native forest loss within habitat patches
 embedded either in homogeneous pasture matrix context (with a high
 proportion of cattle pastures), and heterogeneous coffee matrix context
 (with high abundance of sun coffee plantations). We considered taxonomic,
 functional, and phylogenetic diversity, and tested if matrix type and
 choice of diversity metric influenced the location of biodiversity
 thresholds along the forest cover gradient. We found that matrix type
 postponed the abrupt loss of taxonomic diversity, from a threshold of 35%
 of forest cover in homogeneous pasture matrix to 19% in heterogeneous
 coffee matrix. Phylogenetic diversity responded similarly, with thresholds
 at 30% and 24% in homogeneous-pasture and heterogeneous-coffee matrices,
 respectively, but no relationship with forest cover was detected when
 corrected for richness correlation. Despite the absence of a threshold for
 functional diversity in either matrix types, a strong decline below 20% of
 habitat amount was detected. Finally, below 20% native habitat loss, all
 diversity indices demonstrated abrupt declines, indicating that even
 higher-quality matrices cannot postpone diversity loss below this critical
 threshold. These results highlight that taxonomic diversity is a more
 sensitive index of biodiversity loss in fragmented landscapes, which may
 be used as a benchmark to prevent subsequent functional and phylogenetic
 losses. Furthermore, increasing matrix quality appears an efficient
 conservation strategy to maintain higher biodiversity levels in fragmented
 landscapes over a larger range of habitat loss.
description: Species abundance
 (PAI)Species abundance (PAI)
 per sampling site within both homogeneous pasture and heterogeneous coffee
 matrices. PAI is a abundance index calculated as the number of detections
 of a given species in a given sampling site, divided by the total number
 of point counts (N = 4).Species_abundance_IPA.xlsxSpecies functional traitsSpecies functional traits used to calculate the Functional Diversity.Functional_traits.xlsxBiodiversity indexes per sampling siteAll biodiversity indexes calculated (TD, FD, PD, PDses) per sampling site.All_indexes_Ecography.xlsxPhylogenetic treesPhylogenetic trees of birds were obtained from BirdTree (https://birdtree.org/), and used to calculate the phylogenetic indexes. The birdtree.org website accompanies the following studies: Jetz W, Thomas GH, Joy JB, Hartmann K, Mooers AO (2012) The global diversity of birds in space and time. Nature 491: 444-448. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11631, and Jetz W, Thomas GH, Joy JB, Hartmann K, Redding D, Mooers AO (2014) Distribution and conservation of global evolutionary distinctness in birds. Current Biology 24: 1-12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.011.