DISSERTATION RESEARCH: How mammals impact plant functional diversity of a neotropical forest

在整个热带地区，由于偷猎和过度狩猎，动物数量正在经历令人震惊的下降。令人惊讶的是，被猎杀的热带森林的植物生物多样性比未被猎杀的森林低66%。为什么？这项研究试图回答这个问题，使用了一个模拟狩猎效果的实验，用栅栏将动物挡在森林之外。14年来，人们一直在监测围栏内外植物组成和多样性的变化。在这项研究中，调节动植物相互作用的植物特性正在为每个植物物种进行测量。将具有不同特征的植物进行比较，看看它们对动物的缺席是否有不同的反应。反应灵敏的植物特征就像是“指纹”，让研究人员能够识别物种丧失的机制。为什么要关心热带生物多样性的丧失？热带生物多样性常常免费为人类提供重要的生态系统服务和自然资源。对人类来说，野生热带植物代表着驯养亲戚、新的食用植物、有效的抗微生物化合物、有效的抗癌药物等抗病基因的巨大来源。植物多样性提高了授粉和碳储存等生态系统服务的质量。生物多样性不是一种可再生资源。物种一旦灭绝，就无法恢复。从这项研究中获得的关于对生物多样性的低估威胁的知识，狩猎，将使公园管理者、生物学家和政策制定者能够更好地保护这一不可替代的资源。

Throughout the tropics, animal populations are experiencing alarming declines due to poaching and over-hunting. Surprisingly, hunted tropical forests have up to 66% lower plant biodiversity than un-hunted forests. Why? This study seeks to answer that question, using an experiment which mimics the effect of hunting by keeping animals out of forest patches with fences. Changes in plant composition and diversity inside and outside the fences have been monitored for 14 years. In this study, characteristics of plants which mediate plant-animal interactions are being measured for each plant species. Plants with contrasting characteristics are compared to see if they respond differently to the absence of animals. The responsive plant characteristics act as 'fingerprints', allowing researchers to identify the mechanisms of species loss.Why care about tropical biodiversity loss? Tropical biodiversity provides humanity with important ecosystem services and natural resources, often for free. For humans, wild tropical plants represent a vast resource of disease resistance genes for domesticated relatives, new food plants, potent anti-microbial compounds, effective anti-cancer drugs, and more. Plant diversity improves the quality of ecosystem services such as pollination and carbon storage. Biodiversity is not a renewable resource. Once species are extinct, they cannot be recovered. Knowledge gained from this study about an under-appreciated threat to biodiversity, hunting, will enable park managers, biologists, and policy makers to better protect this irreplaceable resource.