Synergistic roles of climate warming and human occupation in Patagonian megafaunal extinctions during the Last Deglaciation

Metcalf, Jessica L.; Turney, Chris S. M.; Barnett, Ross; Martin, Fabiana; Bray, Sarah C; Vilstrup, Julia T.; Orlando, Ludovic; Salas-Gismondi, Rodolfo; Loponte, Daniel; Medina, Matías E.; Nigris, Mariana E. De; Civalero, Teresa; Fernández, Pablo Marcelo; Gasco, Alejandra; Durán, Víctor; Seymour, Kevin L.; Otaola, Clara; Gil, Adolfo; Paunero, Rafael Sebastián; Prevosti, Francisco Juan; Bradshaw, Corey J. A.; Wheeler, Jane C.; Borrero, Luis Alberto; Austin, Jeremy J.; Cooper, Alan

doi:10.1126/sciadv.1501682

Cited by 126 publications

(114 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Biological turnover represents an increasingly recognized but poorly understood theme in both evolutionary and ecological literature (e.g. Hofreiter et al ., ; Boessenkool et al ., ; Grosser et al ., ; Metcalf et al ., ). Here we show how human pressure and climate dynamics have interacted to drive rapid, synchronous biological extirpations and expansions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Did interaction between human pressure and Little Ice Age drive biological turnover in New Zealand?

Waters

Fraser

Maxwell

et al. 2017

Journal of Biogeography

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Aim To test for simultaneous Holocene biogeographic turnover events in the New Zealand region. Specifically, we synthesize ancient DNA, radiocarbon data and archaeological data to assess the chronologies of late Holocene lineage extinction and replacement. Location Cool‐temperate coastal ecosystems of New Zealand and the subantarctic. Methods We present new ancient DNA and radiocarbon data for New Zealand sea lions, and synthesize existing climatic, genetic and archaeological data, to test for synchronous megafaunal extinction and replacement events. The collated data include ancient DNA sequences from over 200 ancient sea lion and penguin specimens, in addition to 150 modern genetic samples. Results Our temporal genetic analyses show that, following human‐driven extinction events, synchronous marine megafaunal replacement events occurred at around 1500 AD, coinciding with the Little Ice Age onset and an associated drastic human demographic decline in southern New Zealand. Conclusions A combination of climatic and human demographic shifts likely facilitated northward expansion of subantarctic sea lion and penguin lineages, replacing extirpated mainland New Zealand marine megafauna. Broadly, the interaction between human pressure and late Holocene climatic change may explain multiple biological turnover events in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Did interaction between human pressure and Little Ice Age drive biological turnover in New Zealand?

Waters

Fraser

Maxwell

et al. 2017

Journal of Biogeography

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“…Identifying the drivers of the global extinctions of these megafauna (animals with average weights >44 kg) remains controversial1, with climate fluctuations2345, human impact through hunting678 and/or habitat alteration910, and/or a synergistic combination of climate and humans111213 the commonly cited causes. The major challenge has been precisely aligning individual records that contain unambiguous and regionally representative signals of these different factors to test extinction hypotheses robustly.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans rather than climate the primary cause of Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in Australia

et al. 2017

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Environmental histories that span the last full glacial cycle and are representative of regional change in Australia are scarce, hampering assessment of environmental change preceding and concurrent with human dispersal on the continent ca. 47,000 years ago. Here we present a continuous 150,000-year record offshore south-western Australia and identify the timing of two critical late Pleistocene events: wide-scale ecosystem change and regional megafaunal population collapse. We establish that substantial changes in vegetation and fire regime occurred ∼70,000 years ago under a climate much drier than today. We record high levels of the dung fungus Sporormiella, a proxy for herbivore biomass, from 150,000 to 45,000 years ago, then a marked decline indicating megafaunal population collapse, from 45,000 to 43,100 years ago, placing the extinctions within 4,000 years of human dispersal across Australia. These findings rule out climate change, and implicate humans, as the primary extinction cause.

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“…Conversely, the LSE could also be directly responsible for some of the evidence of an impact, a possibility that has not been investigated thoroughly due to the widespread, but incorrect, concept that the eruption predates the evidence of an impact by ∼ 200 years. An impact event (independently or in conjunction with YD cooling) is suggested to explain North American megafaunal extinctions (Firestone et al, 2007;Wolbach et al, 2018a, b), though recent research has built a compelling case that anthropogenic factors such as overhunting and disease were largely responsible for the demise of many species of large mammalian fauna (Sandom et al, 2014;Bartlett et al, 2016;van der Kaars et al, 2017;Cooper et al, 2015;Metcalf et al, 2016). Notably, megafaunal extinction dates appear correlated with the timing of human colonisation of the Western Hemisphere (Surovell et al, 2016), a result inconsistent with an impactdriven extinction.…”

Section: Compatibility With Other Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the link between the sulfur-rich Laacher See volcanic eruption and the Younger Dryas climate anomaly

2018

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Abstract. The Younger Dryas is considered the archetypal millennial-scale climate change event, and identifying its cause is fundamental for thoroughly understanding climate systematics during deglaciations. However, the mechanisms responsible for its initiation remain elusive, and both of the most researched triggers (a meltwater pulse or a bolide impact) are controversial. Here, we consider the problem from a different perspective and explore a hypothesis that Younger Dryas climate shifts were catalysed by the unusually sulfurrich 12.880 ± 0.040 ka BP eruption of the Laacher See volcano (Germany). We use the most recent chronology for the GISP2 ice core ion dataset from the Greenland ice sheet to identify a large volcanic sulfur spike coincident with both the Laacher See eruption and the onset of Younger Dryasrelated cooling in Greenland (i.e. the most recent abrupt Greenland millennial-scale cooling event, the Greenland Stadial 1, GS-1). Previously published lake sediment and stalagmite records confirm that the eruption's timing was indistinguishable from the onset of cooling across the North Atlantic but that it preceded westerly wind repositioning over central Europe by ∼ 200 years. We suggest that the initial short-lived volcanic sulfate aerosol cooling was amplified by ocean circulation shifts and/or sea ice expansion, gradually cooling the North Atlantic region and incrementally shifting the midlatitude westerlies to the south. The aerosol-related cooling probably only lasted 1-3 years, and the majority of Younger Dryas-related cooling may have been due to the seaice-ocean circulation positive feedback, which was particularly effective during the intermediate ice volume conditions characteristic of ∼ 13 ka BP. We conclude that the large and sulfur-rich Laacher See eruption should be considered a viable trigger for the Younger Dryas. However, future studies should prioritise climate modelling of high-latitude volcanism during deglacial boundary conditions in order to test the hypothesis proposed here.

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Synergistic roles of climate warming and human occupation in Patagonian megafaunal extinctions during the Last Deglaciation

Abstract: Patagonian megafaunal extinctions reveal synergistic roles of climate change and human impacts.

Cited by 126 publications

References 57 publications

Did interaction between human pressure and Little Ice Age drive biological turnover in New Zealand?

Did interaction between human pressure and Little Ice Age drive biological turnover in New Zealand?

Humans rather than climate the primary cause of Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in Australia

Evaluating the link between the sulfur-rich Laacher See volcanic eruption and the Younger Dryas climate anomaly

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