Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Arrested in growth or development; stunted.
- adj. Severely diminished; impoverished: "But there were no pleasures in Australia. How could my friend admire so paleontologically depauperate a place?” ( Jake Page).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make poor; impoverish; deprive of fertility or richness: as, to depauperate the soil.
- Impoverished; made poor. Specifically, in botany, imperfectly developed; diminutive from want of nourishment or other unfavorable conditions.
Wiktionary
- adj. Having stunted growth.
- adj. Impoverished.
- adj. Having a limited biodiversity.
- v. To impoverish.
- v. To stunt the growth of.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To make poor; to impoverish.
- adj. Falling short of the natural size, from being impoverished or starved.
Etymologies
- Middle English depauperat, from Medieval Latin dēpauperātus, past participle of dēpauperāre, to make poor : Latin dē-, de- + pauper, poor; see pauper.
Examples
“In exchange for scalable caloric resources in the form of grains human populations were faced with a narrowed diet so that their nutrient streams became depauperate.”
“It can be distinguished from other grassland associations by the dominance of tallgrass species – and from the Central Tall Grasslands to the north by its more depauperate biota and a thin soil layer spread over distinct beds of limestone.”
“The herpetofauna of Tonga, consisting of 20 known species, is considered depauperate.”
“Frequent burning of maquis results in depauperate vegetation dominated by Kermes oak (Quercus coccifera), Cistus spp. or Sarcopoterium spinosum, all of which regenerate rapidly after fire by sprouting or mass germination.”
“Both the succulent and climbing floras are depauperate.”
“Few fishes are adapted to this high level of acidity and, as a result, the Dismal Swamp (63c) is depauperate in fish species; some cutoff pools are ultra acidic and may not support fish life (Jenkins and Burkhead, 1993 (1994)).”
Ecoregions of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia (EPA)
“The ecoregion includes the most extensive stands of lancewood-bullwaddy found in Australia, but this is generally a fairly depauperate environment.”
“The mammal fauna is depauperate, containing only thirty-eight species with both Asian and Australasian affinities (cuscuses), but includes eight ecoregional endemics (Table 1).”
“Grassland communities of the Gulf Plains are regarded as depauperate, but that may be due to a lack of survey effort.”
“If source populations in undisturbed forest fragments are not imbedded in or adjacent to regrowing tracts, large areas of secondary forests may remain depauperate into the future.”
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