'Took this image along time ago'
Because of human activities
Expanding these findings to the current human-driven changes on our planet the researchers expect that shifts in competitive dynamics between generalists and specialists will occur. ‘Human activities such as habitat destruction and other global change drivers eliminate the resources of many specialist species’, says Daniel Kissling from University of Amsterdam. This means that specialists are currently at higher risk of extinction than generalists. ‘This will dramatically change the ecology and evolution of life on Earth because generalists are now favoured at the expense of specialists’, explains Kissling. Ultimately, this will affect the functioning of ecosystems and the services that nature provides to humanity.