Tree species richness and forest structure influence vertebrate scavenging

Nora Anderson, Luisa Martha Senger, Franz Tillmann Niedernhoefer, Marc Nagel, Xianglu Deng, Shan Li, Xiao-Yu Shi, Chao-Dong Zhu, Alexandra-Maria Klein, Finn Rehling 

Tree species richness can alter forest structure and resource availability, often enhancing ecosystem functioning. However, biodiversity–ecosystem functioning research has largely focused on plant-mediated processes, leaving it unclear whether vertebrate-mediated functions such as carrion scavenging respond similarly to tree species richness.
We investigated how tree species richness, canopy cover, and slope steepness influence vertebrate scavenging by quantifying the removal of 2,392 mouse carcasses across 96 plots between 2023 and 2025 in a subtropical forest biodiversity experiment in south-eastern China.
Carcass removal was substantially higher in summer 2024 (25.1%) than in spring 2023 (10.5%) and autumn 2025 (10.9%). Across years, carcass removal increased significantly from 7.2% to 15.8% with tree species richness. More carcasses were removed in plots with lower canopy cover in one of the three years. Slope steepness had negligible effects on carcass removal.
Overall, these findings underscore the role of forest structure and temporal variation, rather than topography, in shaping the vertebrate scavenging of small carcasses. They further demonstrate that the effects of biodiversity can extend to higher trophic functions not directly linked to primary productivity.