Are the ghosts of nature’s past haunting ecology today?
Are the ghosts of nature’s past haunting ecology today?
复制标题
大自然过去的幽灵如今是否仍困扰着生态？
DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2018.04.002
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
R. Stepp
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
B. Silliman;Brent B. Hughes;Leo Chan Gaskins;Qiang He;R. Stepp
人类已经大量减少了大型消费者的数量，并破坏了它们在世界上大多数生态系统中的功能。目前尚不清楚人类活动如何影响这些消费者占据的栖息地的多样性。一些捕食者在保护后的反弹种群提供了一个开始研究这个问题的机会。最近的研究显示，经过长期的保护，东北太平洋沿岸沿着的海獭已扩展到河口沼泽和海草，美国东南海岸的短吻鳄也扩展到咸水生态系统，目前认为栖息地超出了它们的生态位空间。还有证据表明，海豹已经扩展到亚热带气候，美洲狮进入草原，猩猩进入受干扰的森林，狼进入沿海海洋生态系统。历史记录、对保护区的调查以及动物进入以前是狩猎热点的栖息地的模式表明，这些动物中的许多人实际上正在破坏生态系统，而不是第一次占据它们。认识到许多大型消费者自然地在更多样的生态系统中生活和繁荣，对于确定特定生境中捕食者多样性的历史基线，加强新殖民生态系统的复原力和恢复濒危物种的计划具有影响，因为大型消费者有更广泛的生境作为气候引起的威胁的避难所。
Humans have decimated populations of large-bodied consumers and their functions in most of the world's ecosystems. It is less clear how human activities have affected the diversity of habitats these consumers occupy. Rebounding populations of some predators after conservation provides an opportunity to begin to investigate this question. Recent research shows that following long-term protection, sea otters along the northeast Pacific coast have expanded into estuarine marshes and seagrasses, and alligators on the southeast US coast have expanded into saltwater ecosystems, habitats presently thought beyond their niche space. There is also evidence that seals have expanded into subtropical climates, mountain lions into grasslands, orangutans into disturbed forests and wolves into coastal marine ecosystems. Historical records, surveys of protected areas and patterns of animals moving into habitats that were former hunting hotspots indicate that — rather than occupying them for the first time — many of these animals are in fact recolonizing ecosystems. Recognizing that many large consumers naturally live and thrive across a greater diversity of ecosystems has implications for setting historical baselines for predator diversity within specific habitats, enhancing the resilience of newly colonized ecosystems and for plans to recover endangered species, as a greater range of habitats is available for large consumers as refugia from climate-induced threats.