Assembly and disassembly of mammal communities in a fragmented temperate rain forest

We capitalized on the anthropogenic, large-scale "experiment" of deforestat ion in the temperate rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington Star e, USA, to test whether mammalian-community structure is significantly infl uenced by anthropogenic transformation of this landscape (principal macroha bitats include continuous, old-growth forest; old-growth corridors; old-gro wth fragments; second-growth forest; and clearcuts). Species richness of al l non-volant mammals was lowest in second-growth forests, while richness of the eight forest-dependent species was lowest in clearcuts. Species composition of mammalian communities differed significantly among t he five principal macrohabitats, as did environmental characteristics recor ded at each survey site. These differences indicate that both natural and a nthropogenic processes have resulted in the nonrandom assembly of mammalian communities in this transformed, temperate rain forest landscape. The effe cts of deforestation are significant, interpretable (based to a large degre e on changes in local habitat), and persistent given that the structure of mammalian communities from mature second-growth forests (up to 80 yr post-h arvest) have not converged on those from native, old-growth forests.