ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2020
Homogenization of carnivorous mammal ensembles caused by global range reductions of large-bodied hypercarnivores during the late Quaternary.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- A novel trophic cascade between cougars and feral donkeys shapes desert wetlands.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Article
- Anthropogenic disruptions to longstanding patterns of trophic-size structure in vertebrates.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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Abstract
Carnivorous mammals play crucial roles in ecosystems by influencing prey densities and behaviour, and recycling carrion. Yet, the influence of carnivores on global ecosystems has been affected by extinctions and range contractions throughout the Late Pleistocene and Holocene (approx. 130 000 years ago to the current). Large-bodied mammals were particularly affected, but how dietary strategies influenced species' susceptibility to geographical range reductions remains unknown. We investigated (i) the importance of dietary strategies in explaining range reductions of carnivorous mammals (greater than or equal to 5% vertebrate meat consumption) and (ii) differences in functional diversity of continental carnivore ensembles by comparing current, known ranges to current, expected ranges under a present-natural counterfactual scenario. The present-natural counterfactual estimates current mammal ranges had modern humans not expanded out of Africa during the Late Pleistocene and were not a main driver of extinctions and range contractions, alongside changing climates. Ranges of large-bodied hypercarnivorous mammals are currently smaller than expected, compared to smaller-bodied carnivorous mammals that consume less vertebrate meat. This resulted in consistent differences in continental functional diversity, whereby current ensembles of carnivorous mammals have undergone homogenization through structural shifts towards smaller-bodied insectivorous and herbivorous species. The magnitude of ensemble structural shifts varied among continents, with Australia experiencing the greatest difference. Weighting functional diversity by species' geographical range sizes caused a threefold greater shift in ensemble centroids than when using presence-absence alone. Conservation efforts should acknowledge current reductions in the potential geographical ranges of large-bodied hypercarnivores and aim to restore functional roles in carnivore ensembles, where possible, across continents.
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