集群与灾难性的全球脊椎动物减少
Brian Leung1,2, Anna L Hargreaves3, Dan A Greenberg4
1Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. brian.leung2@mcgill.ca.
Nature
|November 19, 2020
概括
全球脊椎动物人口趋势是误导性的. 如果不考虑极端的下降,则会发现总体上有所增加,这凸显了对特定种群群的新保护指标的需要.
科学领域:
- 生态学
- 保护生物学
- 动物学
背景情况:
- 据报道,全球脊椎动物数量有所下降,此前的分析表明,自1970年以来,这一数量大幅下降.
- 现有的全球平均指数可能会掩盖变化,对分析决策敏感,可能会误导总体趋势.
研究的目的:
- 调查极端人口减少对全球脊椎动物趋势分析的影响.
- 提出和评估一种用于识别和解释人口趋势的替代方法,重点关注具有统计意义的群集.
主要方法:
- 重新分析现有的脊椎动物种群数据,不包括极度下降的种群.
- 开发了一种新的方法来识别从统计学上偏离大多数趋势的极端下降或增长集群.
- 根据特定的分类和地理系统以及动物大小和类型的趋势进行了研究.
主要成果:
- 之前报告的全球脊椎动物数量下降超过50%的原因不到3%的人口.
- 如果不考虑这些极端异常值,全球趋势将转向上升.
- 确定了16个极度下降集群的系统 (约1%的种群,不成比例的较大动物) 和7个极度增加集群 (约0.4%的种群).
- 大多数 (98.6%) 种群没有显著的全球趋势,尽管特定的地区和群体 (印度-太平洋,爬行动物,两动物) 呈现出强烈的下降.
结论:
- 脊椎动物种群的全球平均趋势对异常值非常敏感,需要更细致的分析方法.
- 识别极端趋势集群对于准确解释人口动态和优先考虑保护工作至关重要.
- 保护战略应考虑这些已确定的集群,以有效应对区域和分类学方面的挑战.
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