Supplementary Table 7 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当前的气候环境。然而，在地质时间尺度上的气候波动已影响了物种的扩散和灭绝，进而可能影响群落结构。现代群落结构可能是古气候与现代气候共同作用的结果，而过去和现在气候相对影响的程度尚不明确。在本研究中，我们评估了不同时间段的气候对203个非洲哺乳动物群落系统发育和功能性状结构的影响。我们发现，中全新世（约6000年前）和末次冰盛期（约22000年前）的气候对于整体哺乳动物、肉食目和偶蹄目动物群落结构而言，往往比现代气候更具预测性。灵长类动物群落则更受现代气候的影响。总体而言，非洲哺乳动物的群落结构似乎与其所考虑的生态群组的生态灵活性以及它们在非洲大陆所占区域密切相关。我们的研究结果指出，由于人类活动，如气候变化和土地利用变化所导致的特定生物群落未来的重新分布、扩张和收缩，将分别影响对环境变化敏感度不同的哺乳动物群体。