Large mammals of the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain showed resilience to extreme climate change but vulnerability to modern human impacts

Venter, Jan A.; Brooke, Christopher F.; Marean, Curtis W.; Fritz, Hervé; Helm, Charles

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106050

Cited by 27 publications

(37 citation statements)

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“…The lowest population size recorded in AENP after the bottleneck was 52 buffalo in 1985 and the present population is about 800 individuals. Thus, this population did not seem to recover as quickly and to the same level as HiP and KNP, perhaps due to a reduced carrying capacity of the environment, with the Cape Floristic Region consisting predominantly of nutrient-poor soil and unpalatable plants 79 , 80 . Finally, being on the edge of the entire distribution of the species and isolated from all other relict populations, the AENP population could not maintain, nor increase, genetic diversity through gene flow with other populations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

High diversity, inbreeding and a dynamic Pleistocene demographic history revealed by African buffalo genomes

Jager

Glanzmann

Möller

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Genomes retain records of demographic changes and evolutionary forces that shape species and populations. Remnant populations of African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) in South Africa, with varied histories, provide an opportunity to investigate signatures left in their genomes by past events, both recent and ancient. Here, we produce 40 low coverage (7.14×) genome sequences of Cape buffalo (S. c. caffer) from four protected areas in South Africa. Genome-wide heterozygosity was the highest for any mammal for which these data are available, while differences in individual inbreeding coefficients reflected the severity of historical bottlenecks and current census sizes in each population. PSMC analysis revealed multiple changes in Ne between approximately one million and 20 thousand years ago, corresponding to paleoclimatic changes and Cape buffalo colonisation of southern Africa. The results of this study have implications for buffalo management and conservation, particularly in the context of the predicted increase in aridity and temperature in southern Africa over the next century as a result of climate change.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

High diversity, inbreeding and a dynamic Pleistocene demographic history revealed by African buffalo genomes

Jager

Glanzmann

Möller

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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“…On the other hand, the blue antelope (like other species) clearly survived such Pleistocene climatic fluctuations without going extinct 6 , 84 , 85 . Kerley et al 16 , based on historical sightings, estimated a total population size of as few as 370 individuals in only a single population at the time of the arrival of the European colonists, which would have rendered the species already highly threatened 6 , 84 , 85 . Therefore, it seems likely that other factors must have contributed to its demise in historical times.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, it seems likely that other factors must have contributed to its demise in historical times. Resource competition with livestock, habitat deterioration in addition to a suboptimal and probably fragmented habitat likely put the remaining blue antelope population under extreme pressure at the time of European colonization 6 , 84 . Unsustainable hunting and further habitat transformation at the time would have been the last contributing piece that led to the extinction of the species 84 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The blue antelope was likely one of the inhabitants of the Palaeo-Agulhas plain, the coastal platform off the southern Cape that was exposed during marine regressions (glacials) and provided a nutrient-rich ecosystem that supported diverse ungulate communities. However, during high sea levels (interglacials), the inhabitants would have been restricted to the nutrient-poor and therefore suboptimal fynbos habitats [80][81][82][83][84] where they might have undergone population fragmentation 6,84 . On the other hand, the blue antelope (like other species) clearly survived such Pleistocene climatic fluctuations without going extinct 6,84,85 .…”

Section: Uppsala Stockholmmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Identifying the true number of specimens of the extinct blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus)

Hempel

Bibi

Faith

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Native to southern Africa, the blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus) is the only large African mammal species known to have become extinct in historical times. However, it was poorly documented prior to its extinction ~ 1800 AD, and many of the small number of museum specimens attributed to it are taxonomically contentious. This places limitations on our understanding of its morphology, ecology, and the mechanisms responsible for its demise. We retrieved genetic information from ten of the sixteen putative blue antelope museum specimens using both shotgun sequencing and mitochondrial genome target capture in an attempt to resolve the uncertainty surrounding the identification of these specimens. We found that only four of the ten investigated specimens, and not a single skull, represent the blue antelope. This indicates that the true number of historical museum specimens of the blue antelope is even smaller than previously thought, and therefore hardly any reference material is available for morphometric, comparative and genetic studies. Our study highlights how genetics can be used to identify rare species in natural history collections where other methods may fail or when records are scarce. Additionally, we present an improved mitochondrial reference genome for the blue antelope as well as one complete and two partial mitochondrial genomes. A first analysis of these mitochondrial genomes indicates low levels of maternal genetic diversity in the ‘museum population’, possibly confirming previous results that blue antelope population size was already low at the time of the European colonization of South Africa.

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“…First, their access to the sea and marine resources would change substantially (Langejans et al, 2012). Second, the marine regression could have led to the emergence of a large mammal ecosystem on the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (Marean et al, 2010(Marean et al, , 2014(Marean et al, , 2020Copeland et al, 2016;Venter et al, 2019).…”

Section: M1: Fauna Taphonomy and Sea Levelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geoarchaeological investigation of occupation deposits in Blombos Cave in South Africa indicate changes in site use and settlement dynamics in the southern Cape during MIS 5b-4

et al. 2020

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The archaeological assemblage recovered from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) levels in Blombos Cave, South Africa, is central to our understanding of the development of early modern humans. Here, we demonstrate that the cultural and technological innovations inferred from the Blombos Cave MSA record also correlate with significant shifts in site use and occupational intensity. Through a comprehensive geoarchaeological investigation of three MSA occupation phases, we identified distinct diachronic trends in the frequency of visits and the modes of occupation. During the earliest phases (ca. 88–82 ka), humans inhabited the cave for more extended periods, but cave visits were not frequent. During the later phases (ca. 77–72 ka), the cave was more regularly visited but for shorter periods each time. We argue that these changes in local occupational intensity, which also coincide with shifts in vegetation, sea levels, and subsistence, can best be explained by broader changes in hunter-gatherer mobility strategies and occupation patterns. Fundamental changes in regional settlement dynamics during Marine Oxygen Isotope Stages 5b-4 would have significantly affected the nature and frequency of social interaction within and between prehistoric populations living in the southern Cape, a scenario that ultimately may explain some of the social and technological advances that occurred there during this time frame.

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Large mammals of the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain showed resilience to extreme climate change but vulnerability to modern human impacts

Cited by 27 publications

References 50 publications

High diversity, inbreeding and a dynamic Pleistocene demographic history revealed by African buffalo genomes

High diversity, inbreeding and a dynamic Pleistocene demographic history revealed by African buffalo genomes

Identifying the true number of specimens of the extinct blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus)

Geoarchaeological investigation of occupation deposits in Blombos Cave in South Africa indicate changes in site use and settlement dynamics in the southern Cape during MIS 5b-4

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