The Sporormiella proxy and end-Pleistocene megafaunal extinction: A perspective

Feranec, Robert S.; Miller, Norton G.; Lothrop, Jonathan C.; Graham, Russell W.

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.06.004

Cited by 56 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Previous work links megafaunal population crashes with vegetation response and increased fire at Appleman Lake, IN (17,29); Silver Lake, OH (25); and in southeastern New York (Otisville, Binnewater Pond, Pawelski Farm) (36), using percentage decline of the dung-spore fungus Sporormiella (17,25,29,53,54) in palynological records as a proxy for local decline of megafauna, with recognition that the taphonomy of Sporormiella is not yet fully understood (24,53,55). Vegetation and fire response is consistent with climate change interacting with defaunation (17,29), but less so with climate change on its own (17,25,29).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Variable impact of late-Quaternary megafaunal extinction in causing ecological state shifts in North and South America

Barnosky

Lindsey

Villavicencio

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

112

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Loss of megafauna, an aspect of defaunation, can precipitate many ecological changes over short time scales. We examine whether megafauna loss can also explain features of lasting ecological state shifts that occurred as the Pleistocene gave way to the Holocene. We compare ecological impacts of late-Quaternary megafauna extinction in five American regions: southwestern Patagonia, the Pampas, northeastern United States, northwestern United States, and Beringia. We find that major ecological state shifts were consistent with expectations of defaunation in North American sites but not in South American ones. The differential responses highlight two factors necessary for defaunation to trigger lasting ecological state shifts discernable in the fossil record: (i) lost megafauna need to have been effective ecosystem engineers, like proboscideans; and (ii) historical contingencies must have provided the ecosystem with plant species likely to respond to megafaunal loss. These findings help in identifying modern ecosystems that are most at risk for disappearing should current pressures on the ecosystems' large animals continue and highlight the critical role of both individual species ecologies and ecosystem context in predicting the lasting impacts of defaunation currently underway. megafauna | extinction | Quaternary | North America | South America D efaunation is occurring at a rapid pace presently (1-3).Losses are particularly severe for megafauna (1) (considered here as animals with an average body size ≥44 kg), whose removal can trigger the following: changes in vegetation structure and species composition; reductions in environmental heterogeneity, species richness, evenness, seed dispersal, nutrient cycling and distribution, and ecosystem services; coextinction of dependent species; and increases in disease-transmitting organisms (1, 4-14) and fire frequency and/or intensity (15-17).Most work on defaunation has been in contemporary ecosystems. Much less is known about how it manifests over millennial time scales. A natural experiment to assess lasting effects of megafauna loss is provided by the extinctions of late-Quaternary megafauna in the Americas, part of global-scale ecological state shift (18), during which about half of the world's large-bodied mammal species (19,20) disappeared. In North America, ∼60 megafaunal species died out, with the youngest occurrences of dated species typically falling between ∼13,000 and 11,000 y ago (19). In South America, ∼66 species were lost over a longer time span (21-23).With a few important exceptions (6, 17, 24-29), the major changes in vegetation and mammalian community structure that accompanied Quaternary extinctions have been interpreted as responses to changing climate (17-19, 21, 23, 25-27, 29-35). Here, we build on recent work of paleoecologists (17,25,28,29,32,36) and ecologists (1, 3-7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 37) ApproachThe late-Quaternary impact of losing 70-80% of the megafauna genera in the Americas (19) would be expected to trigger biotic transitions that would b...

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Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Variable impact of late-Quaternary megafaunal extinction in causing ecological state shifts in North and South America

Barnosky

Lindsey

Villavicencio

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

112

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“…Establishing an empirical relationship between herbivores and the abundance of coprophilous fungal spores in the fossil record is proving elusive, but it is generally considered that greater numbers of animals will produce larger quantities of dung and, therefore, higher numbers of spores (Baker et al 2013). Variations in spore numbers are therefore typically interpreted as representing changes in the size of herbivore populations (Davis 1987;van Geel et al 2003;Davis and Shafer 2006), with Sporormiellatype (HdV-113) considered to be the most useful indicator of herbivore presence (Davis and Shafer 2006;Raper and Bush 2009;Feranec et al 2011). It should be noted that the characteristically large herds present during the extensive reindeer herding phase at Akkajärvi between 1970 and 1990 resulted in similar frequencies of coprophilous fungal spores being recorded when compared with those during the intensive reindeer herding phase (*1860-1920) with its much smaller-sized herds.…”

Section: Coprophilous Fungal Spores As Indicators Of Land Usementioning

confidence: 99%

High-resolution palynology reveals the land use history of a Sami renvall in northern Sweden

Kamerling

Schofield

Edwards

et al. 2016

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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The limited availability of historical and archaeological evidence means that much is still unknown about the development of Sami reindeer herding in Fennoscandia in both the recent and more distant past. To address this problem, high-resolution palynological analyses, 14 C and 210 Pb dating were undertaken on two adjacent (\25 m apart) peat profiles collected at a recently abandoned reindeer gathering pen (renvall) near Jokkmokk (*66.6°N, 19.8°E) in the boreal forest of northern Sweden. The aim was to assess the impact of Sami reindeer herding on the local environment through a study of pollen, coprophilous fungal spores, microscopic charcoal and sedimentology. The samples collected from within an annex to the renvall indicate cycles of use and abandonment of the pen on a multi-decadal timescale between *AD 1800-2008, most obviously in the coprophilous fungal spore archive. The pattern and timing of these cycles confirm events previously known only from oral histories. Although the local pollen assemblage zones associated with the phasing of activity were reproducible in a second peat core beyond the boundary of the renvall, the coprophilous fungal spore signal in this paired profile was much less distinctive, possibly due to the typically shorter dispersal distances for these microfossils in comparison to pollen grains.

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“…Other common mammalian herbivores at Konza include white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), eight species of rodents and the eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) (McMillan et al 1997). Given that Konza is not a single herbivore system (though it is a single keystone herbivore system), the robustness of Sporormiella as a predictor of bison presence alleviates concerns that late Quaternary Sporormiella fluctuations were driven by changes in the abundances of smaller mammalian herbivores, such as lagomorphs (Feranec et al 2011). Rather, small herbivores appear to set a background level of Sporormiella, beyond which a megafaunal signal can be detected.…”

Section: U N D E R S T a N D I N G T H E S P O R O R M I E L L A P Rmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, declining abundances of spores from the genus Sporormiella (Davis 1987;van Geel 2002;Davis & Shafer 2006) in sedimentary records has been used to link megafaunal population declines and extinction to changes in plant community composition and fire regimes in New York (Robinson, Burney & Burney 2005) and late Holocene changes in Madagascar (Burney, Robinson & Burney 2003), as well as the formation of novel plant associations in the Great Lakes region of North America (Gill et al 2009(Gill et al , 2012 and shifts in biomes in Australia (Rule et al 2012) during the late Pleistocene. However, in spite of its increasing use in a number of high-profile palaeoecological studies, little is known about the natural history of Sporormiella, including palaeohost preferences, production, dispersal and taphonomy (Feranec et al 2011). Of particular importance is quantifying the relationship between spore abundance and megafaunal biomass or herbivory intensity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking abundances of the dung fungus Sporormiella to the density of bison: implications for assessing grazing by megaherbivores in palaeorecords

et al. 2013

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Summary 1.Megaherbivores likely had important influences on past vegetation dynamics, just as they do in modern ecosystems. The exact nature of megaherbivores' role can be studied using a relatively new suite of palaeoecological techniques, including the quantification of fossil spores from Sporormiella and other coprophilous fungi as indicators of megafaunal biomass in sediment records. However, a quantitative linkage of spore abundance with megaherbivore biomass or grazing intensity has been lacking. 3. Both relative (per cent) and absolute (concentration) abundances of Sporormiella were significantly higher in traps inside the enclosure and were positively correlated with bison grazing intensity. The cut-off for distinguishing between bison-grazed and ungrazed traps was determined to be 2.8% Sporormiella of the total pollen and spore sum, consistent with previous palaeoecological reconstructions. The relationship between Sporormiella abundances and available grazing area around each trap was strongest at short radii (25-100 m), suggesting that spores do not disperse far from their source. Sporormiella should thus be considered a local-scale indicator of megaherbivore presence. 4.Traps in the grazed area had significantly higher percentages of Ambrosia and lower percentages of Poaceae pollen than traps from ungrazed areas. This suggests that the pollen record has the potential to detect the ecological effects of bison grazing on grassland community composition. 5.Synthesis. This study refines the use of Sporormiella as a proxy for local megaherbivore presence, especially in grassland systems. Multiproxy Sporormiella and pollen analyses may help elucidate the past drivers of grassland dynamics, including the possible role of bison in mediating grass-forb interactions during the variable moisture regimes of the last 12,000 years.

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The Sporormiella proxy and end-Pleistocene megafaunal extinction: A perspective

Cited by 56 publications

References 37 publications

Variable impact of late-Quaternary megafaunal extinction in causing ecological state shifts in North and South America

Variable impact of late-Quaternary megafaunal extinction in causing ecological state shifts in North and South America

High-resolution palynology reveals the land use history of a Sami renvall in northern Sweden

Linking abundances of the dung fungus Sporormiella to the density of bison: implications for assessing grazing by megaherbivores in palaeorecords

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