Figure 4. Changes in the similarity in species composition with the increase of geographic distance (A), differences in local habitat area (B), differences in overall habitat amount (C), and differences in cattle presence (D). Both response (y-axis) and predictor (x-axes) variables were measured for each pair of patches. The similarity in species composition was measured as the turnover component of the pairwise Jaccard similarity index (Baselga et al. 2010) using the estimated species occurrences (presence-absence matrices) from MSOM. Thin regression lines represent associations in each of 1,000 species presence/absence matrices obtained from 1,000 MCMC samples (Posterior). Bold line represents the median expected association from all MCMC samples. In D, gray circles represent pairs of patches with cattle present (difference of zero), whereas blue circles represent pairs of patches in which cattle was absent in at least one of the sites (absent-absent and absent-present). Contrary to expectations, similarity in species composition did not necessarily increase between sites that were far apart, or differing in habitat area.