Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Department of Biology, Bryn Mawr College, 101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2005 May;8(5):538-47. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00749.x.
By causing extinctions and altering community structure, anthropogenic disturbances can disrupt processes that maintain ecosystem integrity. However, the relationship between community structure and ecosystem functioning in natural systems is poorly understood. Here we show that habitat loss appeared to disrupt ecosystem functioning by affecting extinction order, species richness and abundance. We studied pollination by bees in a mosaic of agricultural and natural habitats in California and dung burial by dung beetles on recently created islands in Venezuela. We found that large-bodied bee and beetle species tended to be both most extinction-prone and most functionally efficient, contributing to rapid functional loss. Simulations confirmed that extinction order led to greater disruption of function than predicted by random species loss. Total abundance declined with richness and also appeared to contribute to loss of function. We demonstrate conceptually and empirically how the non-random response of communities to disturbance can have unexpectedly large functional consequences.
人为干扰会通过导致物种灭绝和改变群落结构来破坏维持生态系统完整性的过程。然而，在自然系统中，群落结构与生态系统功能之间的关系还了解甚少。在这里，我们表明，生境丧失似乎通过影响灭绝顺序、物种丰富度和丰度来干扰生态系统功能。我们在加利福尼亚州的农业和自然生境镶嵌体中研究了蜜蜂的传粉作用，并在委内瑞拉新创建的岛屿上研究了蜣螂的粪便埋藏作用。我们发现，体型较大的蜜蜂和甲虫物种往往既最容易灭绝，又最具功能效率，这导致了功能的快速丧失。模拟结果证实，灭绝顺序导致的功能破坏比随机物种丧失预测的要大。随着丰富度的增加，总丰度下降，而且似乎也导致了功能的丧失。我们从概念上和经验上证明了群落对干扰的非随机响应如何会产生意想不到的大的功能后果。
