Humans have been driving a global erosion of species richness for millennia, but the consequences of past extinctions for other dimensions of biodiversity—functional and phylogenetic diversity—are poorly understood. In this work, we show that, since the Late Pleistocene, the extinction of 610 bird species has caused a disproportionate loss of the global avian functional space along with ~3 billion years of unique evolutionary history. For island endemics, proportional losses have been even greater. Projected future extinctions of more than 1000 species over the next two centuries will incur further substantial reductions in functional and phylogenetic diversity. These results highlight the severe consequences of the ongoing biodiversity crisis and the urgent need to identify the ecological functions being lost through extinction.

中文翻译：

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人为灭绝造成的全球鸟类功能和系统发育多样性的丧失


几千年来，人类一直在推动全球物种丰富度的流失，但人们对过去灭绝对生物多样性其他维度（功能和系统发育多样性）的影响知之甚少。在这项工作中，我们表明，自晚更新世以来，610 种鸟类的灭绝导致了全球鸟类功能空间的不成比例的丧失以及 ~30 亿年的独特进化历史。对于岛屿特有物种来说，比例损失甚至更大。预计在未来两个世纪内，将有 1000 多个物种灭绝，这将导致功能和系统发育多样性的进一步大幅减少。这些结果凸显了持续的生物多样性危机的严重后果，以及确定因灭绝而丧失的生态功能的迫切需要。