Rowan John, Kamilar Jason M, Beaudrot Lydia, Reed Kaye E
Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85282, USA School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85282, USA
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85282, USA Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA Graduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2016 Oct 12;283(1840). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2016.1207.
Ecological research often assumes that species are adapted to their current climatic environments. However, climate fluctuations over geologic timescales have influenced species dispersal and extinction, which in turn may affect community structure. Modern community structure is likely to be the product of both palaeoclimate and modern climate, with the relative degrees of influence of past and present climates unknown. Here, we assessed the influence of climate at different time periods on the phylogenetic and functional trait structure of 203 African mammal communities. We found that the climate of the mid-Holocene (approx. 6000 years ago) and Last Glacial Maximum (approx. 22 000 years ago) were frequently better predictors of community structure than modern climate for mammals overall, carnivorans and ungulates. Primate communities were more strongly influenced by modern climate than palaeoclimate. Overall, community structure of African mammals appears to be related to the ecological flexibility of the groups considered here and the regions of continental Africa that they occupy. Our results indicate that the future redistribution, expansion and contraction of particular biomes due to human activity, such as climate and land-use change, will differentially affect mammal groups that vary in their sensitivity to environmental change.
生态研究通常假定物种适应其当前的气候环境。然而，地质时间尺度上的气候波动影响了物种的扩散和灭绝，这反过来可能会影响群落结构。现代群落结构可能是古气候和现代气候共同作用的产物，过去和现在气候的相对影响程度尚不清楚。在这里，我们评估了不同时期的气候对203个非洲哺乳动物群落的系统发育和功能性状结构的影响。我们发现，对于所有哺乳动物、食肉动物和有蹄类动物而言，全新世中期（约6000年前）和末次盛冰期（约22000年前）的气候往往比现代气候更能预测群落结构。灵长类动物群落受现代气候的影响比古气候更强。总体而言，非洲哺乳动物的群落结构似乎与这里所考虑的类群及其在非洲大陆所占据区域的生态灵活性有关。我们的结果表明，由于人类活动，如气候和土地利用变化，未来特定生物群落的重新分布、扩张和收缩将对环境变化敏感度不同的哺乳动物类群产生不同的影响。
