Huey Raymond B, Ward Peter D
Department of Biology, University of Washington, Box 351800, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Science. 2005 Apr 15;308(5720):398-401. doi: 10.1126/science.1108019.
A catastrophic extinction occurred at the end of the Permian Period. However, baseline extinction rates appear to have been elevated even before the final catastrophe, suggesting sustained environmental degradation. For terrestrial vertebrates during the Late Permian, the combination of a drop in atmospheric oxygen plus climate warming would have induced hypoxic stress and consequently compressed altitudinal ranges to near sea level. Our simulations suggest that the magnitude of altitudinal compression would have forced extinctions by reducing habitat diversity, fragmenting and isolating populations, and inducing a species-area effect. It also might have delayed ecosystem recovery after the mass extinction.
二叠纪末期发生了一次灾难性的物种灭绝事件。然而，即使在最终的灾难发生之前，基线灭绝率似乎就已经有所上升，这表明环境在持续恶化。对于晚二叠世的陆地脊椎动物来说，大气氧气含量下降和气候变暖共同作用，会引发缺氧压力，进而将其海拔分布范围压缩至接近海平面的高度。我们的模拟结果表明，海拔压缩的程度会通过减少栖息地多样性、分割和隔离种群以及引发物种-面积效应，从而导致物种灭绝。它还可能延迟了大灭绝事件后生态系统的恢复。
