Studying biodiversity in light of increased fragmentation in agroecosystems requires the understanding of scale-dependent and multi-scale determinants of various community measures. In a heterogeneous agro-landscape, we aimed to understand whether: (1) Reptile communities are affected by a certain variable that belongs to a particular scale, or, by a combination of variables at different scales, and (2) Reptile community measures are affected differentially by variables related to different scales. We sampled reptiles in three 12.6 km2 land units by using 100 × 50 m plots within 27 natural habitat patches. We collected spatial information of different scale-oriented physical and biotic variables and analyzed changes in community measures at four scales—landscape, land unit, patch and plot—by using the model selection approach based on the AICc. Multiple-scale, rather than single-scale models, best explained all three community measures, indicating that the reptile community structure is highly affected by ecological processes operating at different scales, from the local up to the entire landscape scale. However, abundance, species richness and diversity were affected dissimilarly by different combined determinants and at different scales. Reptile biodiversity at our heterogenous agro-landscape is highly influenced by determinants of multiple scales, where each scale has its contribution to the overall obtained pattern. Number of individuals and species richness respond differently to various processes, depending on the scale at which these processes operate. Agro-landscapes retain the complexity of ecological systems and can serve to maintain natural communities through land sharing practices.

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支离破碎的农业生态系统中自然斑块中爬行动物群落的规模相关性

鉴于农业生态系统日益破碎化，研究生物多样性需要了解各种社区措施的规模依赖性和多规模决定因素。在异质的农业景观中，我们旨在了解：（1）爬行动物群落是否受到属于特定尺度的某个变量的影响，或者受不同尺度的变量组合的影响，以及（2）爬行动物群落测量是受不同尺度相关变量的不同影响。我们使用 27 个自然栖息地斑块内的 100 × 50 m 地块在三个 12.6 平方公里的土地单位中对爬行动物进行采样。我们收集了面向不同尺度的物理和生物变量的空间信息，并使用基于 AICc 的模型选择方法分析了景观、土地单元、斑块和样地四个尺度上群落措施的变化。多尺度而不是单尺度模型最好地解释了所有三种群落措施，表明爬行动物群落结构受到不同尺度的生态过程的高度影响，从局部到整个景观尺度。然而，丰度、物种丰富度和多样性受到不同组合决定因素和不同尺度的不同影响。我们异质农业景观中的爬行动物生物多样性受到多个尺度决定因素的高度影响，其中每个尺度对整体获得的模式都有其贡献。个体数量和物种丰富度对各种过程的反应不同，这取决于这些过程运行的规模。