New carbon dates link climatic change with human colonization and Pleistocene extinctions

Drastic ecological restructuring, species redistribution and extinctions mark the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, but an insufficiency of numbers of well-dated large mammal fossils from this transition have impeded progress in understanding the various causative links. Here I add many new radiocarbon dates to those already published on late Pleistocene fossils from Alaska and the Yukon Territory (AK-YT) and show previously unrecognized patterns. Species that survived the Pleistocene, for example, bison (Bison priscus, which evolved into Bison bison), wapiti (Cervus canadensis) and, to a smaller degree, moose (Alces alces), began to increase in numbers and continued to do so before and during human colonization and before the regional extinction of horse (Equus ferus) and mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). These patterns allow us to reject, at least in AK-YT, some hypotheses of late Pleistocene extinction: 'Blitzkrieg' version of simultaneous human overkill, 'keystone' removal, and 'palaeo-disease'. Hypotheses of a subtler human impact and/or ecological replacement or displacement are more consistent with the data. The new patterns of dates indicate a radical ecological sorting during a uniquely forage-rich transitional period, affecting all large mammals, including humans.     

Extinction and climate change

Arising from F. He & S. P. Hubbell 473, 368-371 (2011). Statistical relationships between habitat area and the number of species observed (species-area relationships, SARs) are sometimes used to assess extinction risks following habitat destruction or loss of climatic suitability. He and Hubbell argue that the numbers of species confined to-rather than observed in-different areas (endemics-area relationships, EARs) should be used instead of SARs, and that SAR-based extinction estimates in the literature are too high. We suggest that He and Hubbell's SAR estimates are biased, that the empirical data they use are not appropriate to calculate extinction risks, and that their statements about extinction risks from climate change do not take into account non-SAR-based estimates or recent observations. Species have already responded to climate change in a manner consistent with high future extinction risks.     

Pleistocene to Holocene extinction dynamics in giant deer and woolly mammoth

The extinction of the many well-known large mammals (megafauna) of the Late Pleistocene epoch has usually been attributed to 'overkill' by human hunters, climatic/vegetational changes or to a combination of both. An accurate knowledge of the geography and chronology of these extinctions is crucial for testing these hypotheses. Previous assumptions that the megafauna of northern Eurasia had disappeared by the Pleistocene/Holocene transition were first challenged a decade ago by the discovery that the latest woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island, northeastern Siberia, were contemporaneous with ancient Egyptian civilization. Here we show that another spectacular megafaunal species, the giant deer or 'Irish elk', survived to around 6,900 radiocarbon yr bp (about 7,700 yr ago) in western Siberia-more than three millennia later than its previously accepted terminal date-and therefore, that the reasons for its ultimate demise are to be sought in Holocene not Pleistocene events. Before their extinction, both giant deer and woolly mammoth underwent dramatic shifts in distribution, driven largely by climatic/vegetational changes. Their differing responses reflect major differences in ecology.     

Synchronization of animal population dynamics by large-scale climate

The hypothesis that animal population dynamics may be synchronized by climate is highly relevant in the context of climate change because it suggests that several populations might respond simultaneously to climatic trends if their dynamics are entrained by environmental correlation. The dynamics of many species throughout the Northern Hemisphere are influenced by a single large-scale climate system, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which exerts highly correlated regional effects on local weather. But efforts to attribute synchronous fluctuations of contiguous populations to large-scale climate are confounded by the synchronizing influences of dispersal or trophic interactions. Here we report that the dynamics of caribou and musk oxen on opposite coasts of Greenland show spatial synchrony among populations of both species that correlates with the NAO index. Our analysis shows that the NAO has an influence in the high degree of cross-species synchrony between pairs of caribou and musk oxen populations separated by a minimum of 1,000 km of inland ice. The vast distances, and complete physical and ecological separation of these species, rule out spatial coupling by dispersal or interaction. These results indicate that animal populations of different species may respond synchronously to global climate change over large regions.     

Rapid responses of British butterflies to opposing forces of climate and habitat change.

Habitat degradation and climate change are thought to be altering the distributions and abundances of animals and plants throughout the world, but their combined impacts have not been assessed for any species assemblage. Here we evaluated changes in the distribution sizes and abundances of 46 species of butterflies that approach their northern climatic range margins in Britain-where changes in climate and habitat are opposing forces. These insects might be expected to have responded positively to climate warming over the past 30 years, yet three-quarters of them declined: negative responses to habitat loss have outweighed positive responses to climate warming. Half of the species that were mobile and habitat generalists increased their distribution sites over this period (consistent with a climate explanation), whereas the other generalists and 89% of the habitat specialists declined in distribution size (consistent with habitat limitation). Changes in population abundances closely matched changes in distributions. The dual forces of habitat modification and climate change are likely to cause specialists to decline, leaving biological communities with reduced numbers of species and dominated by mobile and widespread habitat generalists.     

Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants

Over the past 100 years, the global average temperature has increased by approximately 0.6 degrees C and is projected to continue to rise at a rapid rate. Although species have responded to climatic changes throughout their evolutionary history, a primary concern for wild species and their ecosystems is this rapid rate of change. We gathered information on species and global warming from 143 studies for our meta-analyses. These analyses reveal a consistent temperature-related shift, or 'fingerprint', in species ranging from molluscs to mammals and from grasses to trees. Indeed, more than 80% of the species that show changes are shifting in the direction expected on the basis of known physiological constraints of species. Consequently, the balance of evidence from these studies strongly suggests that a significant impact of global warming is already discernible in animal and plant populations. The synergism of rapid temperature rise and other stresses, in particular habitat destruction, could easily disrupt the connectedness among species and lead to a reformulation of species communities, reflecting differential changes in species, and to numerous extirpations and possibly extinctions.     

Rapid body size decline in Alaskan Pleistocene horses before extinction

About 70% of North American large mammal species were lost at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. The causes of this extinction--the role of humans versus that of climate--have been the focus of much controversy. Horses have figured centrally in that debate, because equid species dominated North American late Pleistocene faunas in terms of abundance, geographical distribution, and species variety, yet none survived into the Holocene epoch. The timing of these equid regional extinctions and accompanying evolutionary changes are poorly known. In an attempt to document better the decline and demise of two Alaskan Pleistocene equids, I selected a large number of fossils from the latest Pleistocene for radiocarbon dating. Here I show that horses underwent a rapid decline in body size before extinction, and I propose that the size decline and subsequent regional extinction at 12,500 radiocarbon years before present are best attributed to a coincident climatic/vegetational shift. The present data do not support human overkill and several other proposed extinction causes, and also show that large mammal species responded somewhat individualistically to climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene.     

Anthrax kills wild chimpanzees in a tropical rainforest

Infectious disease has joined habitat loss and hunting as threats to the survival of the remaining wild populations of great apes. Nevertheless, relatively little is known about the causative agents. We investigated an unusually high number of sudden deaths observed over nine months in three communities of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Ta? National Park, Ivory Coast. Here we report combined pathological, cytological and molecular investigations that identified Bacillus anthracis as the cause of death for at least six individuals. We show that anthrax can be found in wild non-human primates living in a tropical rainforest, a habitat not previously known to harbour B. anthracis. Anthrax is an acute disease that infects ruminants, but other mammals, including humans, can be infected through contacting or inhaling high doses of spores or by consuming meat from infected animals. Respiratory and gastrointestinal anthrax are characterized by rapid onset, fever, septicaemia and a high fatality rate without early antibiotic treatment. Our results suggest that epidemic diseases represent substantial threats to wild ape populations, and through bushmeat consumption also pose a hazard to human health.     

基于红外相机调查的卧龙自然保护区兽类资源时空分布特征

【目的】调查四川卧龙自然保护区内野生兽类资源并分析其时空分布特征,为保护区野生动物资源的保护管理提供参考。【方法】于2015年1月—2016年6月,在卧龙自然保护区布设165台红外相机,调查野生兽类的物种组成、相对丰富度,比较分析野生兽类在多时空尺度上(如不同植被类型、海拔和生态季节)的出现频率。【结果】研究期间,利用红外相机共拍摄到有效兽类照片1 619张,鉴定兽类25种(分属5目13科)。调查发现,夏秋季野生兽类的相对丰富度最高,冬季次之,春季最低; 少部分兽类(如雪豹(Panthera uncial)、岩羊(Pseudois nayaur)等)生活在高海拔的高山草甸及流石滩生境,大部分兽类生活在落叶阔叶林与针阔混交林中。【结论】卧龙自然保护区存在丰富的珍稀濒危兽类资源(如大熊猫(Ailuropoda melanoleuca)、金丝猴(Rhinopithecus roxellana)),应对这些哺乳动物的高时空活动频率(如夏秋季和中等海拔地区(1 700～3 500 m))进行集中研究,如探究其生境适宜性及日常行为,加强对它们的监督和保护。     

甘肃省全国重点保护野生植物的现状与保护对策

根据查阅文献和野外调查,基本查清了甘肃省全国重点保护野生植物的现状,受人为和气候等因素的影响,甘肃省的国家重点保护野生植物资源面临着严重的威胁.本文主要对它们的现状进行了分析,并提出了保护对策.     

气候变化下西南地区12种常见针叶树种适宜分布区预测

【目的】随气候变化加剧,未来西南地区针叶林分布存在诸多不确定性,进行未来气候下西南地区常见针叶树种适宜分布区研究,为该地区森林生态安全评估提供参考。【方法】基于最大熵模型(MaxEnt)模拟未来气候情景下西南地区常见的12种针叶树的气候适宜分布区。【结果】MaxEnt模型能够很好地模拟西南地区12个树种的潜在分布,AUC值均达0.9以上; 2070年MPI-ESM-LR模式RCP4.5情景下西南地区12种常见针叶树种气候适宜区面积分布变化显著,包括冷杉、三尖杉、杉木、干香柏、柏木、水杉、云南松、红豆杉和福建柏在内的9个树种气候适宜区与气候最适区面积增加11.1%~412.8%;银杉和油麦吊云杉的气候适宜区面积分别增加6.0%和32.8%,但气候最适区面积减少了0.8%和3.5%;云南油杉未来气候适宜区和气候最适区的面积则减少24.0%和29.1%。【结论】西南地区针叶林中广布树种的气候适宜区面积会得益于气候变化而扩大,但云南油杉和油麦吊云杉等一些西南特有乡土树种的气候适宜区面积则会因为气候变化而缩小,因此对特有乡土树种的保护应给予重视。     

基于MaxEnt模型的苦槠潜在地理分布格局变迁预测

【目的】苦槠(Castanopsis sclerophylla)为壳斗科栲属常绿阔叶树种,广布于中国长江以南五岭以北各省区,被视为我国南北方气候的“分界树”。研究苦槠潜在地理分布格局变迁及其对气候变化的响应对于保护其野生资源具有重要意义。【方法】运用MaxEnt模型,模拟和预测苦槠在末次盛冰期(last glacial maximum, LGM)、现代和2070年3个时期的潜在分布区,评估了气候因子变化对其潜在地理分布的影响。【结果】MaxEnt模型模拟现代分布区准确度极高,受试者工作特征曲线下的面积(AUC值)达0.971;苦槠现代高度适宜区主要是皖南山区、大别山区、天目山至北雁荡山地区;中度适宜区扩展到了苏南山区、江西及福建沿海地区;末次盛冰期退缩分布在我国华南北部地区,以及东海大陆架东部。2070年,苦槠的分布受气候影响预测适生区会急剧缩小,生境出现破碎化,高、中度适宜区残存于高海拔地区。Jackknife检验表明,最干季降雨量、最干季均温是影响苦槠地理分布的最主要气候因子。【结论】探讨不同气候因子对苦槠潜在地理分布的影响,利用其生物属性监测亚热带最北缘范围动态变化,可为苦槠的种源保护、生境恢复、繁育驯化等提供科学依据。     

Changes in plant community composition lag behind climate warming in lowland forests

Climate change is driving latitudinal and altitudinal shifts in species distribution worldwide, leading to novel species assemblages. Lags between these biotic responses and contemporary climate changes have been reported for plants and animals. Theoretically, the magnitude of these lags should be greatest in lowland areas, where the velocity of climate change is expected to be much greater than that in highland areas. We compared temperature trends to temperatures reconstructed from plant assemblages (observed in 76,634 surveys) over a 44-year period in France (1965-2008). Here we report that forest plant communities had responded to 0.54 °C of the effective increase of 1.07 °C in highland areas (500-2,600 m above sea level), while they had responded to only 0.02 °C of the 1.11 °C warming trend in lowland areas. There was a larger temperature lag (by 3.1 times) between the climate and plant community composition in lowland forests than in highland forests. The explanation of such disparity lies in the following properties of lowland, as compared to highland, forests: the higher proportion of species with greater ability for local persistence as the climate warms, the reduced opportunity for short-distance escapes, and the greater habitat fragmentation. Although mountains are currently considered to be among the ecosystems most threatened by climate change (owing to mountaintop extinction), the current inertia of plant communities in lowland forests should also be noted, as it could lead to lowland biotic attrition.     

影响野生扬子鳄生存的环境因素分析

通过对被保护物种生存环境的分析是探知该物种灭绝和种群数量下降的重要手段．2002年9月间，作者在参加南陵县野生扬子鳄栖息地生境的考察工作的基础上，以安徽省南陵县野生扬子鳄生存环境作为对象，对野生扬子鳄的生存的环境因素进行分析评价．结果表明，影响野生扬子鳄生存环境质量的主要因素为食物、隐蔽条件和水体以及人的活动．在安徽省南陵县二个官方指定的保护点中长乐点尽管食物、隐蔽条件和水三大生境基本要素都较为理想，但因为没有足够的栖息地因此这里并不适合野生扬子鳄种群的生存．比较而言，如对楂林点野生扬子鳄的生存环境进行一定的人工修饰，此地应该有着较为合适的生存环境．     

Response of forest distribution to past climate change: An insight into future predictions

Vegetation dynamics could lead to changes in the global carbon and hydrology cycle, as well as feedbacks to climate change. This paper reviews the response of forest dynamics to climate change. Based on palaeoecological studies, we summarized the features and modes of vegetation response to climate change and categorized the impacts of climate change on vegetation dynamics as three types： climate stress on vegetation, buffer effects by non-climatic factors, and perturbation of the vegetation distribution by stochastic events. Due to the openness of the vegetation system and the integrated effects of both climatic and non-climatic factors the vegetation-climate relationship deviates far from its equilibrium. The vegetation distribution shows a non-linear response to climate change, which also makes it difficult to quantify the modern vegetation distribution in terms of specific climatic factors. Past analog, space-for-time-substitution and Dynamic Global Vegetation Models （DGVMs） are three approaches to predicting the future vegetation distribution, but they have all been established on the assumption of vegetation-climate equilibrium. We propose that improving DGVMs is a future task for studies of vegetation dynamics because these are process-based models incorporating both disturbance （e.g. fire） and the variability in Plant Functional Types （PFTs）. However, palaeoecological results should be used to test the models, and issues like spatial and temporal scale, complexity of climate change, effects of non-climatic factors, vege- tation-climate feedback, and human regulation on vegetation dynamics are suggested as topics for future studies.     

Climate change threats to protected plants of China: an evaluation based on species distribution modeling

Climate change poses major new challenges to biodiversity conservation. Distribution ranges of species have been proven to be affected by climate anomalies. Detecting the extent of protected species response to climate change can help formulate flexible conservation strategies to overcome the changing climate. Using species distribution modeling and high resolution climate data, we simulated current distribution patterns of 233 protected plants in China. Those patterns were then projected into future suitable habitats for each species under nine climate change scenarios, with no migration or full migration hypotheses. Under the most extreme climate change scenario （CGCM-B2a）, we evaluated species extinction risks. Sixteen percent of protected plants are expected to lose more than 30 % of their current ranges. By calculating areal shifts, hotspots for emigrants, immigrants, and persistent species were identified under climate change. Flexible conservation strategies were addressed for those regions. Those strategies strongly depend on the migration types of species and sensitivity of the hotspots to changing climate. In hotspots for emigrants, the main conservation strategy is ex situ protection; protected species from these regions should be stored in seed banks or botanical gardens. For hotspots of immigrants, enough space should be maintained for new species, and some measures are necessary to assist dispersal. For hotspots of persistent species, more natural reserves are needed. We highlight related fields that can help conserve protected species in the future, such as conserving the soil seed bank and understanding of the effects of migration ability and interactions between protected species.     

Retrospect and prospect: advances and future strategies in climate research

A brief review of the progress in climate research and a prospect on its further development in the 21st century is presented. Some key findings including the concept of climate system, the discovery of climatic multi-equilibrium and abrupt climate changes, and the recognition of human activities as an important force of climate change made breakthroughs in climatology possible during last few decades. The adaptation to climatic and global change emerged as a new aspect of climatic research during the 1990s. Climate research will break through in the observation of the global system, in the analysis of mass data, in the deepening of research on the mechanism of climatic change, and in the improvement of models. In the applied fields of climate research, there will be substantial progress in the research on adaptation to global change and sustainable development, on orderly human activities, and climate modification.     

Predators increase the risk of catastrophic extinction of prey populations.

There has been considerable research on both top-down effects and on disturbances in ecological communities; however, the interaction between the two, when the disturbance is catastrophic, has rarely been examined. Predators may increase the probability of prey extinction resulting from a catastrophic disturbance both by reducing prey population size and by changing ecological traits of prey individuals such as habitat characteristics in a way that increases the vulnerability of prey species to extinction. We show that a major hurricane in the Bahamas led to the extinction of lizard populations on most islands onto which a predator had been experimentally introduced, whereas no populations became extinct on control islands. Before the hurricane, the predator had reduced prey populations to about half of those on control islands. Two months after the hurricane, we found only recently hatched individuals--apparently lizards survived the inundating storm surge only as eggs. On predator-introduction islands, those hatchling populations were a smaller fraction of pre-hurricane populations than on control islands. Egg survival allowed rapid recovery of prey populations to pre-hurricane levels on all control islands but on only a third of predator-introduction islands--the other two-thirds lost their prey populations. Thus climatic disturbance compounded by predation brought prey populations to extinction.     

Species-area relationships always overestimate extinction rates from habitat loss

Extinction from habitat loss is the signature conservation problem of the twenty-first century. Despite its importance, estimating extinction rates is still highly uncertain because no proven direct methods or reliable data exist for verifying extinctions. The most widely used indirect method is to estimate extinction rates by reversing the species-area accumulation curve, extrapolating backwards to smaller areas to calculate expected species loss. Estimates of extinction rates based on this method are almost always much higher than those actually observed. This discrepancy gave rise to the concept of an 'extinction debt', referring to species 'committed to extinction' owing to habitat loss and reduced population size but not yet extinct during a non-equilibrium period. Here we show that the extinction debt as currently defined is largely a sampling artefact due to an unrecognized difference between the underlying sampling problems when constructing a species-area relationship (SAR) and when extrapolating species extinction from habitat loss. The key mathematical result is that the area required to remove the last individual of a species (extinction) is larger, almost always much larger, than the sample area needed to encounter the first individual of a species, irrespective of species distribution and spatial scale. We illustrate these results with data from a global network of large, mapped forest plots and ranges of passerine bird species in the continental USA; and we show that overestimation can be greater than 160%. Although we conclude that extinctions caused by habitat loss require greater loss of habitat than previously thought, our results must not lead to complacency about extinction due to habitat loss, which is a real and growing threat.     

野生黄缘闭壳龟资源分布与濒危机制研究

黄缘闭壳龟属世界珍稀濒危物种,中国重点野生保护动物.20世纪70年代前野生黄缘闭壳龟曾广泛分布于中国的河南、安徽、湖北、湖南、浙江、江苏、广西、台湾等省和琉球群岛,野生资源十分丰富,仅河南信阳大别山区的分布面积多达39万hm~2,野生种群数量约40万只.但自20世纪80年代后,随着盗猎强度的加剧,黄缘闭壳龟的分布区和栖息地遭到地毯式的搜索,猎捕手段的多样化及其过度猎捕致使黄缘闭壳龟野生资源日益枯竭.目前只在河南大别山区、安徽皖南山区、安徽皖西山区等地还有少量野生个体生存,稳定的黄缘闭壳龟野生种群仅分布于台湾和琉球群岛.导致黄缘闭壳龟野生资源濒危的原因主要是其性成熟周期长、种群繁殖力低、栖息地遭受干扰破坏等因素,另外,人类贪婪无尽地对其野生资源的索取是导致黄缘闭壳龟自然种群濒危灭绝的重要原因.加强黄缘闭壳龟保护区的建设与管理,加大打击盗猎行为,提高公众的保护意识,建立生态补偿机制,开展自然种群的恢复与重建是拯救黄缘闭壳龟濒危灭绝的有效措施.