Functional traits of the world’s late Quaternary large-bodied avian and mammalian herbivores

Lundgren, Erick J.; Schowanek, Simon D.; Rowan, John; Middleton, Owen; Pedersen, Rasmus Østergaard; Wallach, Arian D.; Ramp, Daniel; Davis, Matt; Sandom, Christopher J.; Svenning, Jens‐Christian

doi:10.1038/s41597-020-00788-5

Cited by 22 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 487 publications

(61 reference statements)

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“…Data and materials availability: All data are available in the Global Paleofire Database ( 25 ) and HerbiTraits ( 23 ) or are available from previous publications ( 16 , 37 – 49 ).…”

Section: Acknowledgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To test whether this was the case, we consider whether continental changes in fire activity in grassy ecosystems (i) were related to grazer extinction severity, (ii) were also related to the loss of other traits related to biomass consumption (i.e., body size and digestive efficiency), and (iii) were unrelated to variation in browser extinction severity, indicating that herbivore-driven changes in grass-fueled fires can be attributed exclusively to grazing communities. To quantify extinction severity, we used a list of 302 extant and extinct late Quaternary mammalian herbivore species recorded over the past 130 thousand years (kyr) derived from the HerbiTraits database ( 23 ) to estimate the continental severity of extinction of grazers, browsers, megaherbivores, and nonruminants ( 24 ). We included mixed feeders in both grazer and browser estimates because they can consume substantial grass and tree biomass, but we scaled their contributions to each by 50% ( 5 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Global response of fire activity to late Quaternary grazer extinctions

Karp

Faith

Marlon

et al. 2021

Science

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Extinctions and grassland fire Grassland herbivores are known to play a role in limiting wildfires by consuming potentially flammable material. Karp et al . present evidence that that herbivore-fire interactions affected fire on a global scale in the past. They compared the severity of late Quaternary continent-level megaherbivore extinctions with changes in paleofire activity calculated from sedimentary charcoal data from grassy biomes. The extent of extinctions varied between continents, and this pattern was reflected in the changes in fire activity. Fire frequency increased most where the megaherbivore extinctions were greatest (South America) and least where few extinctions occurred (Africa). This loss of large-bodied grazers in the Quaternary drastically altered global fire regimes. —AMS

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“…Data and materials availability: All data are available in the Global Paleofire Database ( 25 ) and HerbiTraits ( 23 ) or are available from previous publications ( 16 , 37 – 49 ).…”

Section: Acknowledgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Global response of fire activity to late Quaternary grazer extinctions

Karp

Faith

Marlon

et al. 2021

Science

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“…Using the Jolly method two 97,99 , we estimated the abundance of megafauna, per species and survey area. Then, the total estimated megafauna biomass, per survey area, was calculated taking the average species mass from the HerbiTraits database 100 :…”

Section: Aerial Estimation Of Megafauna Abundance and Biomassmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-economic factors strongly determine megafauna biomass in African savanna protected areas

Thornley

Buitenwerf

Vogel³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The persistence of African megafauna (herbivores >10 kg) in savannas is at risk from anthropogenic pressures including land–use change, bush–meat hunting and poaching. The mitigation of these risks, while still ensuring socio-economic improvement, is a crucial challenge to megafauna conservation and sustainable development across Africa. Protected areas are designed to diminish these risks, yet evidence from individual protected areas and countries suggests that megafauna populations within protected areas are increasingly affected by negative human influence. However, on the continental scale, it remains unclear to what degree megafauna in African savanna protected areas are affected by human influences relative to natural drivers. We quantified the relative influence of human and natural drivers on biomass from 47 megafauna species, estimated from aerial surveys across 296 survey areas in 12 African countries, spanning 550,452 km2 of protected savanna. The Human Development Index (HDI) emerged as the strongest predictor of megafauna biomass within protected areas across Africa, exceeding the importance of the main natural drivers (natural savanna habitat, water availability) and other human–related drivers (roads, environmental governance, and livestock density). Importantly, our findings show that megafauna biomass is suppressed to <= 3600 kg km-2 at low HDI (0.50), compared to 6800 kg km-2 at higher HDI (> 0.50). This indicates that improving socioeconomic conditions surrounding savanna protected areas could substantially enhance megafauna conservation across the continent, while addressing numerous sustainable development goals for local communities.

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“…Overall, we obtained 4651 mammal occurrences distributed over 916 geological or fossil layers (Supporting information). For each species considered, we collected data on body mass and prevalent diet from Lundgren et al (2021). We considered three categories of diet: grasses, browse and vertebrate meat.…”

Section: Mammal Databasementioning

confidence: 99%

The role of habitat fragmentation in Pleistocene megafauna extinction in Eurasia

et al. 2021

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The idea that several small, rather than a single large, habitat areas should hold the highest total species richness (the so-called SLOSS debate) brings into question the importance of habitat fragmentation to extinction risk. SLOSS studies are generally addressed over a short time scale, potentially ignoring the long-term dimension of extinction risk. Here, we provide the first long-term evaluation of the role of habitat fragmentation in species extinction, focusing on 22 large mammal species that lived in Eurasia during the last 200 000 years. By combining species distribution models and landscape pattern analysis, we compared temporal dynamics of habitat spatial structure between extinct and extant species, estimating the size, number and degree of the geographical isolation of their suitable habitat patches. Our results evidenced that extinct mammals went through considerable habitat fragmentation during the last glacial period and started to fare worse than extant species from about 50 ka. In particular, our modelling effort constrains the fragmentation of habitats into a narrow time window, from 46 to 36 ka ago, surprisingly coinciding with known extinction dates of several megafauna species. Landscape spatial structure was the second most important driver affecting megafauna extinction risk (ca 38% importance), after body mass (ca 39%) and followed by dietary preferences (ca 20%). Our results indicate a major role played by landscape fragmentation on extinction. Such evidence provides insights on what might likely happen in the future, with climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation acting as the main forces exerting their negative effects on biodiversity.

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Functional traits of the world’s late Quaternary large-bodied avian and mammalian herbivores

Cited by 22 publications

References 487 publications

Global response of fire activity to late Quaternary grazer extinctions

Global response of fire activity to late Quaternary grazer extinctions

Socio-economic factors strongly determine megafauna biomass in African savanna protected areas

The role of habitat fragmentation in Pleistocene megafauna extinction in Eurasia

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