Purvis A, Gittleman J L, Cowlishaw G, Mace G M
Department of Biology, and Natural Environment Research Council Population Biology, Imperial College, Ascot, UK.
Proc Biol Sci. 2000 Oct 7;267(1456):1947-52. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2000.1234.
What biological attributes predispose species to the risk of extinction? There are many hypotheses but so far there has been no systematic analysis for discriminating between them. Using complete phylogenies of contemporary carnivores and primates, we present, to our knowledge, the first comparative test showing that high trophic level, low population density slow life history and, in particular, small geographical range size are all significantly and independently associated with a high extinction risk in declining species. These traits together explain nearly 50% of the total between-species variation in extinction risk. Much of the remaining variation can be accounted for by external anthropogenic factors that affect species irrespective of their biology.
哪些生物学特性会使物种面临灭绝风险?有许多假说,但迄今为止尚未进行系统分析以区分它们。利用当代食肉动物和灵长类动物的完整系统发育树,据我们所知,我们进行了首次比较测试,结果表明高营养级、低种群密度、缓慢的生活史,尤其是小地理分布范围大小都与衰退物种的高灭绝风险显著且独立相关。这些特征共同解释了物种间灭绝风险总变异的近50%。其余大部分变异可由影响物种的外部人为因素解释,而与物种生物学特性无关。