Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Lacking in variety, especially of species or genes.
  • adjective Arrested in growth or development; stunted.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Impoverished; made poor.
  • To make poor; impoverish; deprive of fertility or richness: as, to depauperate the soil.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb To make poor; to impoverish.
  • adjective (Bot.) Falling short of the natural size, from being impoverished or starved.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective botany, of a plant, etc. Having stunted growth.
  • adjective Impoverished.
  • adjective Having a limited biodiversity.
  • verb To impoverish.
  • verb To stunt the growth of.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English depauperat, from Medieval Latin dēpauperātus, past participle of dēpauperāre, to make poor : Latin dē-, de- + pauper, poor; see pauper.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin de- + pauper ("poor, impoverished") + -ate

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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.

    Low Vitamin D Levels Put Healthy Children at Risk Steve Carper 2007

  • Both the succulent and climbing floras are depauperate.

    Itigi-Sumbu thicket 2008

  • Grassland communities of the Gulf Plains are regarded as depauperate, but that may be due to a lack of survey effort.

    Carpentaria tropical savanna 2008

  • 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.

    Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests 2008

  • The mammal fauna is depauperate, containing only thirty-eight species with both Asian and Australasian affinities (cuscuses), but includes eight ecoregional endemics (Table 1).

    Halmahera rain forests 2008

  • 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.

    Biological diversity in the Mediterranean Basin 2008

  • 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.

    Flint Hills tall grasslands 2008

  • 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) 2008

  • The herpetofauna of Tonga, consisting of 20 known species, is considered depauperate.

    Tongan tropical moist forests 2008

  • The ecoregion includes the most extensive stands of lancewood-bullwaddy found in Australia, but this is generally a fairly depauperate environment.

    Victoria Plains tropical savanna 2008

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