
Projected losses of global mammal and bird ecological strategies - howard941
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10284-z
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tacosx
This is a really good read for stats people, this paragraph in particular kind
of freaked me out:

> After 100 years of projected extinctions, the global composition of mammals
> and birds is predicted to shift to smaller (permutation test: body mass
> observed mean = 70.3 g, body mass projected mean across runs
> [minimum–maximum across replicates] = 64.1 g [63.4–64.7 g]; P ≤ 0.001),
> faster-lived (generation length observed mean = 4.27 years, projected mean =
> 4.22 years [4.21–4.23 years]; P ≤ 0.001), more fecund (litter/clutch size
> observed mean = 2.51, projected mean = 2.55 [2.54–2.56]; P ≤ 0.001), more
> generalist (habitat breadth observed mean = 3.23, projected mean = 3.32
> [3.31–3.33]; P ≤ 0.001) and more invertivorous species (diet observed mean =
> −0.00032, projected mean = 0.0012 [0.00087–0.0014]; P ≤ 0.001)
> (Supplementary Figs. 5f and 7). These shifts are relatively large for the
> species pool and temporal scale investigated, for example, Davis et al.10
> showed that current median mammal body mass is 14% lower than during the
> Last Interglacial (~130,000 years ago), while we predict an extra 25.2%
> (23.9–25.8%) reduction in median mammal body mass over the next 100 years
> from the current level. These declines in body mass equate to a reduction
> rate of −0.00011% per year between the Last Interglacial and now, compared
> to a predicted reduction rate of −0.25% (−0.24 to −0.26%) per year between
> now and the next 100 years.

