Studies of species-area curves and of the spatial correlation of biogeographic ranges with climatic variables may allow some crude prediction of amount of extinction over large regions in the face of major environmental change. However, these approaches tell little about the proximate causes of species loss. The contention that failure of metapopulation dynamics is at the root of many species extinctions is so far not borne out by observed rates of inter-population movement. Rather, most species that have a metapopulation structure seem to have central source populations and peripheral sink populations. Much of the extinction recorded in the ecological literature is probably of such peripheral populations and their loss has little to do with species extinctions. The disappearance of central, source populations is more important but its causes are not well documented. Habitat loss is the single greatest ultimate cause of current extinction. However, disappearance of the very last individuals of the last population of a species may not be obviously related to habitat loss. Rather, it may seem mysterious, because the last individuals will look healthy, or it may seem attributable to one of the stochastic forces widely assumed to set minimum viable population sizes.
PL
Powiązanie wiedzy o areałach zajmowanych przez poszczególne gatunki ze zmiennością klimatu może pozwolić na przybliżone przewidywanie intensywności wymierania na dużych obszarach w wyniku wielkich przemian środowiska. Podejście takie niewiele jednak pomaga w ustaleniu ostatecznej przyczyny wymierania. Większość gatunków ma swoje centralne populacje źródłowe i peryferyczne populacje zanikowe. Większość zapisanych w materiale paleontologicznym przykładów wymierania odnosi się do populacji peryferycznych. Ich koniec niewiele ma wspólnego z rzeczywistym wymieraniem gatunku. O wiele istotniejszy jest zanik populacji centralnych, ale przyczyny tego zjawiska nie są dostatecznie udokumentowane. W czasach nam współczesnych zanik środowiska właściwego dla gatunku jest najpoważniejszym czynnikiem wymierania. Śmierć ostatnich osobników ostatniej populacji nie musi być jednak w oczywisty spoób związana ze zmianami w środowisku. Najczęściej jest skutkiem działania nieidentyfikowalnych, zapewne przypadkowych czynników.
Introduced populations of the small Indian mongooseHerpestes javanicus (Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 1818), in Hawaii have been shown to include male breeding coalitions. Young individuals of this species stay with their mothers until they reach adult size, suggesting that young males are not exposed to the full pressure of intrasexual competition until they have completed skeletal development. It was hypothesized that variance of male skeletal characteristics should therefore be similar to the variance seen in females. It has been observed that adult males with small body mass are not typically members of breeding coalitions, suggesting that body mass is a key factor in male intraspecific competition. It was thus hypothesized that variance in male mass should exceed that in female mass. These hypotheses were tested by direct measurement of live animals in the field and by measurement of museum specimens. Both hypotheses were strongly supported. A significant correlation was also found between male body length and variance in male mass, but no correlation was found among females. It is suggested that males with low body length, like females, maintain only as much mass as is physiologically required, whereas long males maximize their mass with varying degrees of success, to facilitate intrasexual competition.
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