美国新墨西哥大学Felisa A. Smith团队提出幼年恐龙对群落结构和多样性的影响。这一研究成果发表在2021年2月26日出版的国际学术期刊《科学》上。

他们量化了遍及七大洲1.36亿年的43个群落的影响。他们发现诸如霸王龙的大型兽脚类恐龙（超过1000公斤）对恐龙群落结构具有特定的影响。尽管食草动物的体型范围很大，但大型类食肉动物体重不足100至1000公斤。

他们证明，幼年巨兽脚类动物可能填充了中食肉动物的生态位，从而导致总体分类学多样性降低。这种模式的一致性表明，个体发育的生态位转移是产生恐龙群落结构和多样性的重要因素。

据介绍，尽管在中生代中生物多样性占主导地位，但恐龙并非特有物种。卵生的生殖方式甚至将巨型恐龙的体重限制在15公斤以下； 多种形态的增长导致每个阶段消耗不同的资源。新生儿和成年恐龙之间的这种差异可能已经影响了恐龙群落的结构和多样性。

附：英文原文

Title: The influence of juvenile dinosaurs on community structure and diversity

Author: Katlin Schroeder, S. Kathleen Lyons, Felisa A. Smith

Issue&Volume: 2021/02/26

Abstract: Despite dominating biodiversity in the Mesozoic, dinosaurs were not speciose. Oviparity constrained even gigantic dinosaurs to less than 15 kg at birth; growth through multiple morphologies led to the consumption of different resources at each stage. Such disparity between neonates and adults could have influenced the structure and diversity of dinosaur communities. Here, we quantified this effect for 43 communities across 136 million years and seven continents. We found that megatheropods (more than 1000 kg) such as tyrannosaurs had specific effects on dinosaur community structure. Although herbivores spanned the body size range, communities with megatheropods lacked carnivores weighing 100 to 1000 kg. We demonstrate that juvenile megatheropods likely filled the mesocarnivore niche, resulting in reduced overall taxonomic diversity. The consistency of this pattern suggests that ontogenetic niche shift was an important factor in generating dinosaur community structure and diversity.

DOI: 10.1126/science.abd9220

Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6532/941