Table A2.
Detailed description of environmental variables used in the statistical analysis for the distribution of Rhabdomys. Climatic variables were downloaded from the freely available database Worldclim (http://www.worldclim.org). Climatic variable descriptions can be found in (Hijmans et al. 2005), and correspond to interpolated minimum, maximum, and mean values of temperature and precipitation gathered between 1950 and 2000. Notice that temperature is represented as temperature in °C × 10, temperature seasonality corresponds to standard deviation of monthly data × 10, isothermality corresponds to the ratio between diurnal and annual temperature range, and precipitation seasonality corresponds to the coefficient of variation of the monthly data. A vegetation productivity index, the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), as well as land use were downloaded from Modis Terra. Land use categories were further transformed into percentage of each category within each 10 × 10 km grid in our analysis.
| Variable | Mean | Standard deviation | Minimum value | Maximum value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual mean temperature | 174.86 | 28.20 | 51.00 | 229.00 |
| Mean diurnal range | 148.97 | 22.32 | 66.00 | 189.00 |
| Isothermality | 56.05 | 4.32 | 45.00 | 72.00 |
| Temperature seasonality | 4040.70 | 1014.81 | 1473.00 | 6331.00 |
| Max temperature of warmest month | 296.54 | 37.06 | 145.00 | 387.00 |
| Min temperature of coldest month | 30.96 | 35.37 | –58.00 | 123.00 |
| Temperature annual range | 265.58 | 47.65 | 117.00 | 355.00 |
| Mean temperature of wettest quarter | 205.79 | 39.38 | 80.00 | 269.00 |
| Mean temperature of driest quarter | 132.01 | 42.55 | 5.00 | 252.00 |
| Mean temperature of warmest quarter | 220.95 | 28.68 | 90.00 | 288.00 |
| Mean temperature of coldest quarter | 118.84 | 32.12 | 5.00 | 188.00 |
| Annual precipitation | 460.18 | 265.01 | 10.00 | 1159.00 |
| Precipitation of wettest month | 83.06 | 42.79 | 3.00 | 228.00 |
| Precipitation of driest month | 7.08 | 7.79 | 0.00 | 65.00 |
| Precipitation seasonality | 73.11 | 24.54 | 10.00 | 147.00 |
| Precipitation of wettest quarter | 226.12 | 121.66 | 6.00 | 629.00 |
| Precipitation of driest quarter | 26.23 | 26.52 | 0.00 | 207.00 |
| Precipitation of warmest quarter | 188.03 | 128.86 | 3.00 | 629.00 |
| Precipitation of coldest quarter | 39.27 | 59.86 | 0.00 | 464.00 |
| Altitude | 1108.81 | 494.03 | 2.00 | 3231.00 |
| Spatial standard deviation of altitude | 410.16 | 362.28 | 9.00 | 1957.00 |
| % Evergreen forest | 1.44 | 8.03 | 0.00 | 94.00 |
| % Deciduous forest | 1.28 | 3.94 | 0.00 | 34.00 |
| % Mixed | 0.06 | 0.36 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| % Closed shrubland | 0.44 | 1.50 | 0.00 | 24.00 |
| % Open shrubland | 47.60 | 38.39 | 0.00 | 100.00 |
| % Woody savanna | 4.72 | 8.36 | 0.00 | 65.00 |
| % Grasslands | 11.97 | 16.30 | 0.00 | 77.00 |
| % Crops | 1.84 | 8.29 | 0.00 | 100.00 |
| % Urban | 2.45 | 12.39 | 0.00 | 100.00 |
| % Mixture crop-natural vegetation | 0.75 | 2.95 | 0.00 | 33.00 |
| % Barren soil | 8.68 | 24.11 | 0.00 | 100.00 |
| Mean EVI | 1829.31 | 853.99 | –3000.00 | 4816.50 |