School of Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2021 Jun;5(6):738-746. doi: 10.1038/s41559-021-01439-7. Epub 2021 Apr 15.
Over millennia, ecological and evolutionary mechanisms have shaped macroecological patterns across the tree of life. Research describing these patterns at both regional and global scales has traditionally focused on the study of metazoan species. Consequently, there is a limited understanding of cross-phylum biogeographic structuring and an escalating need to understand the macroecology of both microscopic and macroscopic organisms. Here we used environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to explore the biodiversity of marine metazoans, protists and bacteria along an extensive and highly heterogeneous coastline. Our results showed remarkably consistent biogeographic structure across the kingdoms of life despite billions of years of evolution. Analyses investigating the drivers of these patterns for each taxonomic kingdom found that environmental conditions (such as temperature) and, to a lesser extent, anthropogenic stressors (such as fishing pressure and pollution) explained some of the observed variation. Additionally, metazoans displayed biogeographic patterns that suggested regional biotic homogenization. Against the backdrop of global pervasive anthropogenic environmental change, our work highlights the importance of considering multiple domains of life to understand the maintenance and drivers of biodiversity patterns across broad taxonomic, ecological and geographical scales.
数千年来,生态和进化机制塑造了生命之树上的宏观生态模式。在区域和全球尺度上描述这些模式的研究传统上侧重于后生动物物种的研究。因此,对于跨门生物地理结构的理解有限,并且越来越需要了解微观和宏观生物的宏观生态学。在这里,我们使用环境 DNA (eDNA) 代谢组学技术来探索广泛且高度异质的海岸线沿线海洋后生动物、原生生物和细菌的生物多样性。尽管经过数十亿年的进化,我们的研究结果显示出跨越生命王国的惊人一致的生物地理结构。分析调查每个分类王国这些模式的驱动因素发现,环境条件(如温度)以及在较小程度上的人为胁迫因素(如捕捞压力和污染)解释了一些观察到的变化。此外,后生动物表现出的生物地理模式表明区域生物同质化。在全球普遍存在的人为环境变化的背景下,我们的工作强调了考虑多个生命领域以了解广泛的分类、生态和地理尺度上生物多样性模式的维持和驱动因素的重要性。