Landscape Paleoecology and Megafaunal Extinction in Southeastern New York State

Robinson, Guy; Burney, Lida Pigott; Burney, David A.

doi:10.1890/03-4064

Cited by 126 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…At the same time, charcoal frequencies rose. Increasing percentages of ash, hornbeam/ironwood, oak, alder, and birch and a concomitant increase in fire fits the model of defaunation well, because contemporary ecosystems exhibit such increases in woody understory and tree-forming plants when megafauna, especially elephants, are removed (3,11,56,57), and the increase in combustible woody fuel promotes fires (15)(16)(17)36). The proboscideans Mammut americanum (mastodons) and Mammuthus (mammoths) occupied the region, as did Cervalces (stag-moose), Megalonyx (ground sloth), Ovibos moschatus (shrub ox), Castoroides ohioensis (giant beaver), Platygonus compressus (peccary), and Bison priscus (bison) (58).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 83%

“…First, vegetation should change noticeably, consistent with ecological release from browsing, grazing, and trampling; such changes should be apparent in fossil-pollen time series (17,25,29) and possibly also in charcoal (fire-frequency) records (15)(16)(17)36). Second, surviving mammal communities should demonstrate changes in species composition, richness, and evenness (32).…”

Section: Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we build on recent work of paleoecologists (17,25,28,29,32,36) and ecologists (1, 3-7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 37) …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we build on recent work of paleoecologists (17,25,28,29,32,36) and ecologists (1, 3-7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 37) who have been asking instead: Are the observed biotic responses consistent with megafauna loss, and if so, what does this loss imply for the future of ecosystems at risk for losing their megafauna today?…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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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.

119

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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: 83%

Section: Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we build on recent work of paleoecologists (17,25,28,29,32,36) and ecologists (1, 3-7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 37) …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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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.

119

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“…Increased fire activity immediately after the Pleistocene extinctions (73)(74)(75)(76)78) and so can be used to provide the ecological context of functional large herbivore collapse (73)(74)(75)(76)(77). Several pollen records from eastern North America show an increase in hardwood deciduous taxa immediately after the Sporormiella-indicated megafaunal decline, including increases in palatable and shade-tolerant woody species (74,75,78), and a more closed vegetation, consistent with release from browsing pressure.…”

Section: Evidence Of Large-herbivore Impact From the Paleoecologicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining paleo-data and modern exclosure experiments to assess the impact of megafauna extinctions on woody vegetation

Bakker

Gill

Johnson

et al. 2015

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

322

299

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Until recently in Earth history, very large herbivores (mammoths, ground sloths, diprotodons, and many others) occurred in most of the World's terrestrial ecosystems, but the majority have gone extinct as part of the late-Quaternary extinctions. How has this large-scale removal of large herbivores affected landscape structure and ecosystem functioning? In this review, we combine paleo-data with information from modern exclosure experiments to assess the impact of large herbivores (and their disappearance) on woody species, landscape structure, and ecosystem functions. In modern landscapes characterized by intense herbivory, woody plants can persist by defending themselves or by association with defended species, can persist by growing in places that are physically inaccessible to herbivores, or can persist where high predator activity limits foraging by herbivores. At the landscape scale, different herbivore densities and assemblages may result in dynamic gradients in woody cover. The late-Quaternary extinctions were natural experiments in large-herbivore removal; the paleoecological record shows evidence of widespread changes in community composition and ecosystem structure and function, consistent with modern exclosure experiments. We propose a conceptual framework that describes the impact of large herbivores on woody plant abundance mediated by herbivore diversity and density, predicting that herbivore suppression of woody plants is strongest where herbivore diversity is high. We conclude that the decline of large herbivores induces major alterations in landscape structure and ecosystem functions.browsers | ecosystem functions | herbivore diversity | landscape structure | megaherbivore During the late Quaternary, megafaunas were drastically reduced in most regions (1, 2), representing the start of an ongoing trophic downgrading that has resulted in the loss of entire functional guilds and relaxation of top-down control in today's ecosystems (3). A high proportion of the large herbivores that have survived into the Anthropocene (4) are now drastically reduced in range and abundance, rendering them functionally extinct, or have been replaced by livestock in much of their historic ranges (5-8). How has this loss of wild-living large herbivores affected landscape structure and ecosystem functioning?Contemporary large herbivores have strong effects on the abundance of woody species, plant diversity, nutrient cycling, and other biota (9). Most likely, the ecological effects of preextinction herbivores were as large, possibly much more so given the great size and diversity of the lost large herbivore assemblages (10, 11). We hypothesize that Pleistocene herbivore assemblages, including large and megaherbivore browsers, would have greatly reduced woody plant abundance and altered species composition and landscape structure, if present at sufficient densities. We review the impact of large herbivores (≥45 kg in body weight) on woody vegetation, with a focus on megaherbivores (≥1,000 kg), and combine information from ...

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Conservation and Resource Management in a Changing World: Extending Historical Range of Variation Beyond the Baseline

Jackson

2012

Historical Environmental Variation in Conservation and Natural Resource Management

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Landscape Paleoecology and Megafaunal Extinction in Southeastern New York State

Cited by 126 publications

References 55 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

Combining paleo-data and modern exclosure experiments to assess the impact of megafauna extinctions on woody vegetation

Conservation and Resource Management in a Changing World: Extending Historical Range of Variation Beyond the Baseline

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