Li Fengqing, Tierno de Figueroa José Manuel, Lek Sovan, Park Young-Seuk
Department of Biology, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 130-701, Republic of Korea.
Department of Zoology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Granada 18071, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2015 Jun 17;5:11343. doi: 10.1038/srep11343.
Global change has already had observable effects on ecosystems worldwide, and the accelerated rate of global change is predicted in the future. However, the impacts of global change on the stability of biodiversity have not been systematically studied in terms of both large spatial (continental drift) and temporal (from the last inter-glacial period to the next century) scales. Therefore, we analyzed the current geographical distribution pattern of Plecoptera, a thermally sensitive insect group, and evaluated its stability when coping with global change across both space and time throughout the Mediterranean region--one of the first 25 global biodiversity hotspots. Regional biodiversity of Plecoptera reflected the geography in both the historical movements of continents and the current environmental conditions in the western Mediterranean region. The similarity of Plecoptera assemblages between areas in this region indicated that the uplift of new land and continental drift were the primary determinants of the stability of regional biodiversity. Our results revealed that climate change caused the biodiversity of Plecoptera to slowly diminish in the past and will cause remarkably accelerated biodiversity loss in the future. These findings support the theory that climate change has had its greatest impact on biodiversity over a long temporal scale.
全球变化已经对世界各地的生态系统产生了显著影响，并且预计未来全球变化的速度将会加快。然而，从大空间尺度（大陆漂移）和时间尺度（从上一个间冰期到下个世纪）来看，全球变化对生物多样性稳定性的影响尚未得到系统研究。因此，我们分析了对温度敏感的昆虫类群襀翅目的当前地理分布格局，并评估了整个地中海地区（全球25个生物多样性热点地区之一）在应对全球变化时，其在空间和时间上的稳定性。襀翅目的区域生物多样性既反映了大陆历史变迁中的地理情况，也反映了西地中海地区当前的环境状况。该地区不同区域间襀翅目组合的相似性表明，新陆地的隆起和大陆漂移是区域生物多样性稳定性的主要决定因素。我们的研究结果显示，气候变化在过去导致襀翅目的生物多样性缓慢减少，而在未来将导致生物多样性损失显著加速。这些发现支持了气候变化在长期时间尺度上对生物多样性影响最大这一理论。
