Anthropogenic disturbance driving population decline of a dominant tree in East Asia evergreen broadleaved forests over the last 11,000 years

Current biodiversity loss was generally considered to be caused by anthropogenic disturbance, but when anthropogenic activities began to impact biodiversity loss is still controversial. One hypothesis suggested it was from the industrial era, while others proposed that the anthropogenic disturbance had already resulted in biodiversity decline since the Early Holocene. To test these hypotheses, we focus on subtropical East Asia, which has witnessed a land use and anthropogenic history since the Early Holocene. We selected the unique vegetation of evergreen broadleaved forests (EBLFs), using a genomic approach to infer the demographic history of a dominant plant (Litsea elongata) of EBLFs, and to further detangle the impact of climate change and/or anthropogenic disturbance on effective population size fluctuation. Nine well-defined geographical clades were identified within extant populations of L. elongata. The estimated historical population sizes of these clades all contracted, indica..., ,

当前全球生物多样性丧失普遍被认为由人为扰动引发，但人类活动究竟何时开始对生物多样性丧失产生影响，学界迄今仍存在争议。有假说提出该影响始于工业革命时期，另有学者认为早在早全新世（Early Holocene）阶段，人为扰动就已导致生物多样性下降。为验证上述两类假说，本研究聚焦东亚亚热带区域——该区域自早全新世起便拥有持续的土地利用与人类活动历史。我们选取常绿阔叶林（evergreen broadleaved forests, EBLFs）这一独特植被类型，采用基因组学手段推断常绿阔叶林优势物种黄丹木姜子（Litsea elongata）的种群历史，并进一步厘清气候变化与/或人为扰动对其有效种群大小（effective population size）波动的影响。在现存的黄丹木姜子（L. elongata）种群中，共鉴定出9个界定清晰的地理分支。各分支的历史种群规模均出现缩减，初步研究显示……