Supplementary Table 6 from Strong influence of palaeoclimate on the structure of modern African mammal communities

Ecological research often assumes that species are adapted to their current climatic environments. However, climate fluctuations over geologic time scales have influenced species dispersal and extinction, which in turn may affect community structure. Modern community structure is likely to be the product of both palaeoclimate and modern climate, with the relative degrees of influence of past and present climates unknown. Here, we assessed the influence of climate at different time periods on the phylogenetic and functional trait structure of 203 African mammal communities. We found that the climate of the mid-Holocene (approx. 6,000 years ago) and Last Glacial Maximum (approx. 22 000 years ago) were frequently better predictors of community structure than modern climate for mammals overall, carnivorans and ungulates. Primate communities were more strongly influenced by modern climate than palaeoclimate. Overall, community structure of African mammals appears to be related to the ecological flexibility of the groups considered here and the regions of continental Africa that they occupy. Our results indicate that the future redistribution, expansion and contraction of particular biomes due to human activity, such as climate and land-use change, will differentially affect mammal groups that vary in their sensitivity to environmental change.

生态学研究通常假定物种已适应其所处的当前气候环境。然而，地质时间尺度上的气候波动会影响物种的扩散与灭绝，进而可能改变群落结构。现代群落结构大概率是古气候（palaeoclimate）与现代气候共同作用的产物，而古今气候对群落结构的相对影响程度仍不明确。本研究针对203个非洲哺乳动物群落，评估了不同时期气候对其系统发育（phylogenetic）与功能性状（functional trait）结构的影响。研究发现，对于整体哺乳动物、食肉目动物与有蹄类动物而言，中全新世（约6000年前）和末次盛冰期（约22000年前）的气候，往往比现代气候更能预测其群落结构。灵长类动物群落则更多受到现代气候而非古气候的影响。总体而言，非洲哺乳动物的群落结构似乎与所研究类群的生态灵活性及其在非洲大陆的栖息区域相关。本研究结果表明，未来因气候与土地利用变化等人类活动导致的特定生物群系重新分布、扩张与收缩，将对环境敏感性不同的哺乳动物类群产生差异化影响。