depauperate
/dɪˈpɔːp(ə)rət
/adjective Biology
1(Of a flora, fauna, or ecosystem) lacking in numbers or variety of species: oceanic islands are generally depauperate in mayflies...
- The flora is largely derived from that of south-eastern Polynesia, but is comparatively depauperate, due to the remoteness and the young geological age of the island.
- Compared with natural forest, of course, even agroforest lands are generally depauperate.
- Three years after thinning plus herbicide, the plantations remained depauperate of deciduous trees.
1.1(Of a plant or animal) imperfectly developed: a depauperate inflorescence...
- Does the genetic variation of organelle DNAs in D. sinensis tend to become depauperate because of their small effective population size, as in many endangered species?
- As a result, high-elevation populations will tend to be genetically depauperate.
- Such studies permitted taxonomic identification of morphologically depauperate fossils as a prerequisite to assembling databases for biodiversity studies.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'impoverished'): from medieval Latin depauperatus, past participle of depauperare, from de- 'completely' + pauperare 'make poor' (from pauper 'poor').