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Miguel B. Araújo Lab

Predicting the effects of environmental change on biodiversity

You are here: Home / Research Highlights / Climate shapes community trophic structures and humans simplify them

Climate shapes community trophic structures and humans simplify them

  • Nature Communications (2019 )
  • Authors: Manuel Mendoza & Miguel Araújo
  • Link to article: https://rdcu.be/bWUfI

Nature’s complexity is intriguing, but the circumstances determining whether or how order emerges from such complexity remains a matter of extensive research. Using the geographical distributions and food preferences of all terrestrial mammal species with masses >3 kg, we show that large mammals group into feeding guilds (species exploiting similar resources) and that these guilds form trophic structures that vary across biomes globally. We identify five trophic structures closely matching climate variability and named them boreal, temperate, semiarid, seasonal tropical and humid tropical owing to their relative overlap with the distribution of biomes. We also find that human activities simplify trophic structures, generally transitioning them to species-poorer states. Detected transitions include boreal and temperate structures becoming depauperate or seasonal- and humid-tropical becoming semiarid. Whether the observed generalities among trophic structures of large mammals are indicative of patterns across whole food webs is matter for further investigation. The results help refine projections of the effects of environmental change on the trophic structure of large mammals.

 

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News

  • The Grand Jury of the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity Meets in Berlin
  • L’Oréal UNESCO Award For Women in Science
  • Position available: Researcher in NaturaConnect
  • Miguel Araújo appointed Chair of one of 4 Scientific Councils of FCT
  • Position available: PhD candidate in Community Ecology and Systematic Conservation Planning

Outreach

  • Além Risk (Beyond Risk) on RTP
  • 50 years of protected areas in Portugal
  • 200 anniversary of Alfred Russel Wallace
  • Além Risco (Beyond Risk) project
  • Is the planet full? TV programme

Opportunities

  • Position available: Researcher in NaturaConnect
  • Position available: PhD candidate in Community Ecology and Systematic Conservation Planning
  • La Caixa PhD studentship
  • Position available: Technician
  • Call for access to Iberian Pond data (2022)

Research Highlights

Human disturbances affect the topology of food webs

Biogeography of bird and mammal trophic structures

Strategy games to improve environmental policymaking

Response of an Afro-Palearctic bird migrant to glaciation cycles

Improvements in reports of species redistribution under climate change are required

Books

Biodiversidade 2030

Biodiversidade 2030

Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions

Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions

Spatial Conservation Prioritization

Spatial Conservation Prioritization

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