A study by CREAF and the Smithsonian Institute for Tropical Research shows that when the populations of large and mid-sized vertebrate animal are reduced, a phenomenon known as “defaunation,” this has negative repercussions for the rest of the ecosystem. This is a clear sign about the vulnerability of ecosystems to global biodiversity loss.
Ecologists have talked and written a lot about how human activities change ecosystems or living conditions, at the local or global scales. We also claim about the need to abolish the persistent gap between human society and Nature in thinking, because humans are a part of Nature. Yet, curiously, we have not much worked in clarifying what is our role or place in ecosystems.
This study, in which the CREAF participated, determined that relationships between species follow a few common patterns, and, therefore, with little data a lot of detail can be understood regarding the ecological networks of ecosystems and predict a species’ evolution in the face of perturbations.
