2023-09-07 ジョージア工科大学
◆ジョージア工科大学の研究者は、新しい方法を使用して、哺乳動物の特性が環境とどのように変化し、これが哺乳動物コミュニティの機能にどのように影響するかを調査しました。彼らの研究により、将来の保護活動の優先順位を決定するための情報が提供されました。
<関連情報>
- https://research.gatech.edu/echoes-extinctions-novel-method-sheds-light-future-challenges-mammals
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39480-8
アフリカの巨大動物における形質-環境関係の崩壊は更新世中期に起こった Disruption of trait-environment relationships in African megafauna occurred in the middle Pleistocene
Daniel A. Lauer,A. Michelle Lawing,Rachel A. Short,Fredrick K. Manthi,Johannes Müller,Jason J. Head & Jenny L. McGuire
Nature Communications Published:18 July 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39480-8
Abstract
Mammalian megafauna have been critical to the functioning of Earth’s biosphere for millions of years. However, since the Plio-Pleistocene, their biodiversity has declined concurrently with dramatic environmental change and hominin evolution. While these biodiversity declines are well-documented, their implications for the ecological function of megafaunal communities remain uncertain. Here, we adapt ecometric methods to evaluate whether the functional link between communities of herbivorous, eastern African megafauna and their environments (i.e., functional trait-environment relationships) was disrupted as biodiversity losses occurred over the past 7.4 Ma. Herbivore taxonomic and functional diversity began to decline during the Pliocene as open grassland habitats emerged, persisted, and expanded. In the mid-Pleistocene, grassland expansion intensified, and climates became more variable and arid. It was then that phylogenetic diversity declined, and the trait-environment relationships of herbivore communities shifted significantly. Our results divulge the varying implications of different losses in megafaunal biodiversity. Only the losses that occurred since the mid-Pleistocene were coincident with a disturbance to community ecological function. Prior diversity losses, conversely, occurred as the megafaunal species and trait pool narrowed towards those adapted to grassland environments.
