UMR-CNRS 5276, laboratoire de géologie de Lyon, Terre, planètes, environnement, université Claude-Bernard Lyon 1, 27-43, boulevard du 11-Novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France.
C R Biol. 2011 May;334(5-6):351-9. doi: 10.1016/j.crvi.2011.02.006. Epub 2011 May 4.
Over the last decades, the critical study of fossil diversity has led to significant advances in the knowledge of global macroevolutionary patterns of biodiversity. The deep-time history of life on Earth results from background originations and extinctions defining a steady-state, nonstationary equilibrium occasionally perturbed by biotic crises and "explosive" diversifications. More recently, a macroecological approach to the large-scale distribution of extant biodiversity offered new, stimulating perspectives on old theoretical questions and current practical problems in conservation biology. However, time and space are practically distinct, but functionally related dimensions of ecological systems. This calls for a spatially-integrated study of biodiversity dynamics at an evolutionary timescale. Indeed, the biosphere is a complex adaptive system whose study cannot be arbitrarily reduced to any single spatial- and/or temporal-scale level of resolution without a loss of content. From such an integrated perspective, a simple fact emerges: in a physically heterogeneous and ever-changing world, spatiotemporal variations in biodiversity are the rule-not the exception.
在过去的几十年里，对化石多样性的批判性研究极大地促进了对全球生物多样性宏观进化模式的认识。地球上生命的深时历史是由起源和灭绝事件决定的，这些事件定义了一个稳定的、非静止的平衡状态，偶尔会受到生物危机和“爆炸式”多样化的干扰。最近，对现存生物多样性的大规模分布进行的宏观生态学研究为保护生物学中的旧理论问题和当前实际问题提供了新的、有启发性的视角。然而，时间和空间在实践上是不同的，但在功能上是相关的生态系统维度。这就要求在进化时间尺度上对生物多样性动态进行空间综合研究。事实上，生物圈是一个复杂的自适应系统，其研究不能任意简化到任何单一的空间和/或时间尺度水平，否则会丢失内容。从这种综合的角度来看，一个简单的事实出现了：在一个物理上异质和不断变化的世界中，生物多样性的时空变化是常态，而不是例外。
