Jablonski D, Sepkoski J J
Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Ecology. 1996 Jul;77(5):1367-78.
The fossil record provides a wealth of data on the role of regional processes and historical events in shaping biological communities over a variety of time scales. The Quaternary record with its evidence of repeated climatic change shows that both terrestrial and marine species shifted independently rather than as cohesive assemblages over scales of thousands of years. Larger scale patterns also show a strong individualistic component to taxon dynamics; assemblage stability, when it occurs, is difficult to separate from shared responses to low rates of environmental change. Nevertheless, the fossil record does suggest that some biotic interactions influence large-scale ecological and evolutionary patterns, albeit in more diffuse and protracted fashions than those generally studied by community ecologists. These include: (1) the resistance by incumbents to the establishment of new or invading taxa, with episodes of explosive diversification often appearing contingent on the removal of incumbents at extinction events; (2) steady states of within-habitat and global diversity at longer time scales (10(7)-l0(8) yr), despite enormous turnover of taxa; and (3) morphological and biogeographic responses to increased intensities of predation and substratum disturbance over similarly long time scales. The behavior of species and communities over the array of temporal and spatial scales in the fossil record takes on additional significance for framing conservation strategies, and for understanding recovery of species, lineages, and communities from environmental changes.
化石记录提供了丰富的数据，说明了区域过程和历史事件在不同时间尺度上塑造生物群落的作用。第四纪记录及其反复出现气候变化的证据表明，陆地和海洋物种在数千年的时间尺度上是独立迁移的，而不是作为一个有凝聚力的组合迁移。更大尺度的模式也显示出分类群动态有很强的个体主义成分；组合稳定性一旦出现，就很难与对低环境变化率的共同反应区分开来。然而，化石记录确实表明，一些生物相互作用会影响大规模的生态和进化模式，尽管其方式比群落生态学家通常研究的方式更为分散和持久。这些包括：（1）现存物种对新物种或入侵物种建立的抵抗力，爆发性多样化事件往往似乎取决于在灭绝事件中现存物种的消失；（2）尽管分类群有大量更替，但在较长时间尺度（10^7 - 10^8年）内栖息地内和全球多样性的稳定状态；（3）在同样长的时间尺度上，对捕食强度增加和基质干扰的形态和生物地理反应。化石记录中物种和群落在时间和空间尺度上的行为，对于制定保护策略以及理解物种、谱系和群落从环境变化中的恢复具有额外的重要意义。
