Research on global biodiversity has long assumed that present-day biodiversity patterns reflect present-day factors, namely contemporary climate and human activities.
A new study shows that climate changes and human impacts over the last 100,000 years continue to shape patterns of tropical and subtropical mammal biodiversity today — a surprising finding.
Arizona State University paleoecologist Kaye E. Reed, Institute of Human Origins research associate and President’s Professor with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and ASU graduate student Irene Smail collaborated with researchers including ASU doctoral graduate John Rowan on the research, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Understanding the factors that structure global biodiversity patterns — the distribution and diversity of life on Earth — has been of long-standing scientific interest. To date, much of this research has focused on present-day climate, such as average temperature or rainfall, because climate is known to influence species' geographic distributions and because human-caused climate change is a major threat. Likewise, other recent human impacts, such as deforestation and urbanization of wild lands that destroy habitats for many species, are known to influence biodiversity and are well-studied.
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