One equation fits overkill: why allometry underpins both prehistoric and modern body size-biased extinctions
One equation fits overkill: why allometry underpins both prehistoric and modern body size-biased extinctions
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DOI：
10.1007/s10144-005-0213-4
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发表时间：
2005-08-01
影响因子：
1.7
通讯作者：
Bowman, DMJS
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Brook, BW;Bowman, DMJS
无论是在过去还是在现代全球生物多样性危机期间，大型脊椎动物的更高灭绝倾向都有异速生长的基本解释：最大种群增长与体重（W）的比例为W-0.25，而世代长度为W 0 -15。任何大小的脊椎动物的种群都可以持续下去，如果它们的种群每一代都经历相同的比例减少，但是如果这种慢性死亡率以每年的速度发生，那么较小的短命动物能够生存，而较大的动物则被无情地推向灭绝。在此基础上，我们对晚更新世灭绝和当代生物多样性危机的经验性身体大规模灭绝风险证据的解释是，人类的影响足够迅速和普遍，超过了大多数大型类群的自然选择能力，扰乱了高度进化的生活史权衡，允许维持不同大小动物的多样化组合。
The higher extinction proneness of large bodied vertebrates, both in the past and during the modern global biodiversity crisis, has a fundamental explanation in allometry: maximal population increase is scaled to body mass (W) by W-0.25, whilst generation length scales by W0-15. Populations of any sized vertebrate can persist if their populations experience the same proportional reduction each generation, but if this chronic mortality occurs at an annual rate, then smaller short-lived animals are able to survive whilst larger animals are driven inexorably to extinction. On this basis, our interpretation of the empirical body mass-extinction risk evidence for both the Late Pleistocene extinctions and the contemporary biodiversity crisis is that human impacts are sufficiently rapid and ubiquitous to outstrip the capacity of natural selection in most large taxa, upsetting the highly evolved life history trade-offs that permit the maintenance of a diverse assemblage of different sized animals.