絶滅の響き: 哺乳類の将来の課題に光を当てる新しい手法(Echoes of Extinctions: Novel Method Sheds Light on Future Challenges for Mammals)

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2023-09-07 ジョージア工科大学

◆大型哺乳動物の絶滅は気候変動と人間活動の増加により脅威にさらされており、その結果、過去5万年で存在した大型哺乳動物のほぼ半分が絶滅しました。これにより、哺乳動物コミュニティが環境とどのように相互作用するかについての研究が重要性を増しています。
◆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。

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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

絶滅の響き: 哺乳類の将来の課題に光を当てる新しい手法(Echoes of Extinctions: Novel Method Sheds Light on Future Challenges for Mammals)

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.

生物環境工学
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