Your browser version may not work well with NCBI's Web applications. More information here...
1: Proc Biol Sci. 2007 Apr 22;274(1613):1023-8.
Related Articles, Links
Click here to read Click here to read Click here to read
Experimental simulations about the effects of overexploitation and habitat fragmentation on populations facing environmental warming.

Mora C, Metzger R, Rollo A, Myers RA.

Leigh Marine Laboratory, University of Auckland, PO Box 349, Warkworth 1241, New Zealand. moracamilo@hotmail.com

Populations of many species are dramatically declining worldwide, but the causal mechanism remains debated among different human-related threats. Coping with this uncertainty is critical to several issues about the conservation and future of biodiversity, but remains challenging due to difficulties associated with the experimental manipulation and/or isolation of the effects of such threats under field conditions. Using controlled microcosm populations, we quantified the individual and combined effects of environmental warming, overexploitation and habitat fragmentation on population persistence. Individually, each of these threats produced similar and significant population declines, which were accelerated to different degrees depending upon particular interactions. The interaction between habitat fragmentation and harvesting generated an additive decline in population size. However, both of these threats reduced population resistance causing synergistic declines in populations also facing environmental warming. Declines in population size were up to 50 times faster when all threats acted together. These results indicate that species may be facing risks of extinction higher than those anticipated from single threat analyses and suggest that all threats should be mitigated simultaneously, if current biodiversity declines are to be reversed.

Publication Types:
PMID: 17284407 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

PMCID: PMC2124478