2022-08-03 ミシガン大学
研究者らは、アリの分布の希少性と豊かさを、比較的よく研究されている両生類、鳥類、哺乳類、爬虫類と比較したところ、アリはこれらの脊椎動物のグループと、脊椎動物同士のグループと同程度に異なっていることがわかった。これは、アリが脊椎動物から進化的に非常に遠いことを考えると予想外であった。
<関連情報>
- https://news.umich.edu/new-global-map-of-ant-biodiversity-reveals-areas-that-may-hide-undiscovered-species/
- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abp9908
既知および未発見のアリの生物多様性の世界分布 The global distribution of known and undiscovered ant biodiversity
Jamie M. Kass,Benoit Guénard,Kenneth L. Dudley,Clinton N. Jenkins ,Fumika Azuma,Brian L. Fisher,Catherine L. Parr ,Heloise Gibb ,John T. Longino,Philip S. Ward,Anne Chao ,David Lubertazzi ,Michael Weiser ,Walter Jetz ,Robert Guralnick,Rumsaïs Blatrix ,James Des Lauriers,David A. Donoso,Christos Georgiadis ,Kiko Gomez ,Peter G. Hawkes ,Robert A. Johnson,John E. Lattke ,Joe A. MacGown,William Mackay,Simon Robson,Nathan J. Sanders ,Robert R. Dunn ,Evan P. Economo
Science Advances Published:3 Aug 2022
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abp9908
Abstract
Invertebrates constitute the majority of animal species and are critical for ecosystem functioning and services. Nonetheless, global invertebrate biodiversity patterns and their congruences with vertebrates remain largely unknown. We resolve the first high-resolution (~20-km) global diversity map for a major invertebrate clade, ants, using biodiversity informatics, range modeling, and machine learning to synthesize existing knowledge and predict the distribution of undiscovered diversity. We find that ants and different vertebrate groups have distinct features in their patterns of richness and rarity, underscoring the need to consider a diversity of taxa in conservation. However, despite their phylogenetic and physiological divergence, ant distributions are not highly anomalous relative to variation among vertebrate clades. Furthermore, our models predict that rarity centers largely overlap (78%), suggesting that general forces shape endemism patterns across taxa. This raises confidence that conservation of areas important for small-ranged vertebrates will benefit invertebrates while providing a “treasure map” to guide future discovery.
