Millennial processes of population decline, range contraction and near extinction of the European bison

Abstract

European bison ( Bison bonasus ) were widespread throughout Europe during the late Pleistocene. However, the contributions of environmental change and humans to their near extinction have never been resolved. Using process-explicit models, fossils and ancient DNA, we disentangle the combinations of threatening processes that drove population declines and regional extinctions of European bison through space and across time. We show that the population size of European bison declined abruptly at the termination of the Pleistocene in response to rapid environmental change, hunting by humans and their interaction. Human activities prevented populations of European bison from rebounding in the Holocene, despite improved environmental conditions. Hunting caused range loss in the north and east of its distribution, while land use change was responsible for losses in the west and south. Advances in hunting technologies from 1500 CE were needed to simulate low abundances observed in 1870 CE. While our findings show that humans were an important driver of the extinction of the European bison in the wild, vast areas of its range vanished during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition because of post-glacial environmental change. These areas of its former range have been climatically unsuitable for millennia and should not be considered in reintroduction efforts.

Reconstructing colonization dynamics to establish how human activities transformed island biodiversity

“…POM methods are being used with increasing frequency to optimise parameters in SEPMs 29 , 52 , 53 . This is being done by comparing model simulations with independent validation targets and selecting models that have the mechanisms to most closely replicate these targets 26 , often using Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC 54 ).…”

Food patch selection by the largest European herbivore

“…The species was recognized as well-adapted to open habitats (Mendoza and Palmqvist 2008;Bocherens et al 2015), that due to forest expansion and increasing human pressure during the Holocene became refugee species in forest habitats (Kerley et al 2012). Further deforestations and hunting pressure caused declining densities and fitness, that led to progressive disappearance of European bison from the continent (Kerley et al 2012;Hofman-Kamińska et al 2019;Pilowsky et al 2023). The species was extirpated in the wild at the beginning of twentieth century and restored from captive survivors (Pucek et al 2004;Tokarska et al 2011).…”