DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1895
论文题名: The legacy of the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions on nutrient availability in Amazonia
作者: Doughty C.E. ; Wolf A. ; Malhi Y.
刊名: Nature Geoscience
ISSN: 17520894
出版年: 2013
卷: 6, 期: 9 起始页码: 761
结束页码: 764
语种: 英语
Scopus关键词: albedo
; analytical framework
; biogeochemical cycle
; biogeochemistry
; diffusion
; extinction
; floodplain
; land surface
; nutrient availability
; Pleistocene
; seed dispersal
; Amazonia
; Australia
; Animalia
英文摘要: In the late Pleistocene, 97 genera of large animals went extinct, concentrated in the Americas and Australia. These extinctions had significant effects on ecosystem structure, seed dispersal and land surface albedo. However, the impact of this dramatic extinction on ecosystem nutrient biogeochemistry, through the lateral transport of dung and bodies, has never been explored. Here we analyse this process using a novel mathematical framework that analyses this lateral transport as a diffusion-like process, and we demonstrate that large animals play a disproportionately large role in the horizontal transfer of nutrients across landscapes. For example, we estimate that the extinction of the Amazonian megafauna decreased the lateral flux of the limiting nutrient phosphorus by more than 98%, with similar, though less extreme, decreases in all continents outside of Africa. This resulted in strong decreases in phosphorus availability in eastern Amazonia away from fertile floodplains, a decline which may still be ongoing. The current P limitation in the Amazon basin may be partially a relic of an ecosystem without the functional connectivity it once had. We argue that the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions resulted in large and ongoing disruptions to terrestrial biogeochemical cycling at continental scales and increased nutrient heterogeneity globally. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. Citation statistics:
资源类型: 期刊论文
标识符: http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/106712
Appears in Collections: 气候减缓与适应 科学计划与规划
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作者单位: Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
Recommended Citation:
Doughty C.E.,Wolf A.,Malhi Y.. The legacy of the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions on nutrient availability in Amazonia[J]. Nature Geoscience,2013-01-01,6(9)