Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NR, UK.
WWF UK, The Living Planet Centre, Brewery Road, Woking, GU21 4LL, UK.
Nat Commun. 2019 Oct 14;10(1):4590. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12539-1.
Intact forests provide diverse and irreplaceable ecosystem services that are critical to human well-being, such as carbon storage to mitigate climate change. However, the ecosystem functions that underpin these services are highly dependent on the woody vegetation-animal interactions occurring within forests. While vertebrate defaunation is of growing policy concern, the effects of vertebrate loss on natural forest regeneration have yet to be quantified globally. Here we conduct a meta-analysis to assess the direction and magnitude of defaunation impacts on forests. We demonstrate that real-world defaunation caused by hunting and habitat fragmentation leads to reduced forest regeneration, although manipulation experiments provide contrasting findings. The extirpation of primates and birds cause the greatest declines in forest regeneration, emphasising their key role in maintaining carbon stores, and the need for national and international climate change and conservation strategies to protect forests from defaunation fronts as well as deforestation fronts.
完整的森林提供了多样且不可替代的生态系统服务，这些服务对人类福祉至关重要，例如碳储存以缓解气候变化。然而，支撑这些服务的生态系统功能高度依赖于森林内发生的木本植被-动物相互作用。尽管脊椎动物的灭绝受到越来越多的政策关注，但脊椎动物的丧失对自然森林更新的影响尚未在全球范围内量化。在这里，我们进行了荟萃分析，以评估因狩猎和生境破碎化导致的动物灭绝对森林的影响方向和程度。我们证明，由狩猎和生境破碎化导致的现实世界中的动物灭绝会导致森林更新减少，尽管操纵实验提供了相反的结果。灵长类动物和鸟类的灭绝导致森林更新减少最大，这强调了它们在维持碳储量方面的关键作用，以及国家和国际气候变化和保护战略需要保护森林免受动物灭绝前沿以及森林砍伐前沿的影响。
