Evolutionary cascades induced by large frugivores
Evolutionary cascades induced by large frugivores
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1710172114
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发表时间：
2017-11-07
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Brodie, Jedediah F.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Brodie, Jedediah F.
以水果为食的大型脊椎动物已经从世界上许多生态系统中消失。这种动物群消失的生态后果可能是严重的，但进化的后果几乎是未知的，因为仍然不清楚食果动物是否对水果性状施加了强烈的选择。我评估了果实性状的宏观进化，以应对种子传播脊椎动物的多样性和大小的变化。在整个印度-马来群岛，许多相同的植物谱系已经暴露在非常不同的种子传播脊椎动物组合中。对5科41属400余种植物的系统发育分析表明，果实的平均大小反映了食果鸟类和哺乳动物的分类和功能多样性。在摩鹿加群岛和苏拉威西岛，果实的大小分别比巽他地区（婆罗洲、苏门答腊和马来西亚半岛）小40.2-46.5%，那里的动物组合相对较分散，大部分是小型动物，而巽他地区的动物组合则非常多样化。果实的颜色，然而，是无关的脊椎动物的多样性或代表性的鸟类与哺乳动物的食果动物组合。在热带森林中几乎无处不在的大型动物的过度狩猎，可以强烈地改变对植物的选择压力，导致广泛的，虽然特征特定的形态变化。
Large, fruit-eating vertebrates have been lost from many of the world's ecosystems. The ecological consequences of this defaunation can be severe, but the evolutionary consequences are nearly unknown because it remains unclear whether frugivores exert strong selection on fruit traits. I assessed the macroevolution of fruit traits in response to variation in the diversity and size of seed-dispersing vertebrates. Across the Indo-Malay Archipelago, many of the same plant lineages have been exposed to very different assemblages of seed-dispersing vertebrates. Phylogenetic analysis of > 400 plant species in 41 genera and five families revealed that average fruit size tracks the taxonomic and functional diversity of frugivorous birds and mammals. Fruit size was 40.2-46.5% smaller in the Moluccas and Sulawesi (respectively), with relatively depauperate assemblages of mostly small-bodied animals, than in the Sunda Region (Borneo, Sumatra, and Peninsular Malaysia), with a highly diverse suite of large and small animals. Fruit color, however, was unrelated to vertebrate diversity or to the representation of birds versus mammals in the frugivore assemblage. Overhunting of large animals, nearly ubiquitous in tropical forests, could strongly alter selection pressures on plants, resulting in widespread, although trait-specific, morphologic changes.