Learning from the past to prepare for the future: felids face continued threat from declining prey

Sandom, Christopher J.; Faurby, Søren; Svenning, Jens‐Christian; Burnham, Dawn; Dickman, Amy; Hinks, Amy E.; Macdonald, Ewan A.; Ripple, William J.; Williams, James P.; Macdonald, David W.

doi:10.1111/ecog.03303

Cited by 29 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…predators and parasites) and environmental conditions [2]. Humans have dramatically altered mammalian herbivore and predator assemblages in the late Quaternary [3][4][5][6]. One striking change has been the alteration of the predator-prey size structure, which has implications on how mammalian herbivores influence their environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trophic rewilding presents regionally specific opportunities for mitigating climate change

Sandom

Middleton

Lundgren

et al. 2020

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Large-bodied mammalian herbivores can influence processes that exacerbate or mitigate climate change. Herbivore impacts are, in turn, influenced by predators that place top-down forcing on prey species within a given body size range. Here, we explore how the functional composition of terrestrial large-herbivore and -carnivore guilds varies between three mammal distribution scenarios: Present-Natural, Current-Day and Extant-Native Trophic (ENT) Rewilding. Considering the effects of herbivore species weakly influenced by top-down forcing, we quantify the relative influence keystone large-herbivore guilds have on methane emissions, woody vegetation expansion, fire dynamics, large-seed dispersal, and nitrogen and phosphorus transport potential. We find strong regional differences in the number of herbivores under weak top-down regulation between our three scenarios, with important implications for how they will influence climate change relevant processes. Under the Present-Natural non-ruminant, megaherbivore, browsers were a particularly important guild across much of the world. Megaherbivore extinction and range contraction and the arrival of livestock mean large, ruminant, grazers have become more dominant. ENT Rewilding can restore the Afrotropics and the Indo-Malay realm to the Present-Natural benchmark, but causes top-down forcing of the largest herbivores to become commonplace elsewhere. ENT Rewilding will reduce methane emissions, but does not maximize natural climate solution potential. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trophic rewilding presents regionally specific opportunities for mitigating climate change

Sandom

Middleton

Lundgren

et al. 2020

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

Self Cite

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“…[ 10 – 12 ]), habitat destruction (e.g. [ 13 – 15 ]) and reduced prey availability [ 16 , 17 ] have severely impacted the distribution of this elusive predator, and leopards are now extinct in large parts of their historic Asian and African distribution (Fig. 1 ) [ 7 , 18 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and its extinct Eurasian populations

et al. 2018

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BackgroundResolving the historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) is a complex issue, because patterns inferred from fossils and from molecular data lack congruence. Fossil evidence supports an African origin, and suggests that leopards were already present in Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. Analysis of DNA sequences however, suggests a more recent, Middle Pleistocene shared ancestry of Asian and African leopards. These contrasting patterns led researchers to propose a two-stage hypothesis of leopard dispersal out of Africa: an initial Early Pleistocene colonisation of Asia and a subsequent replacement by a second colonisation wave during the Middle Pleistocene. The status of Late Pleistocene European leopards within this scenario is unclear: were these populations remnants of the first dispersal, or do the last surviving European leopards share more recent ancestry with their African counterparts?ResultsIn this study, we generate and analyse mitogenome sequences from historical samples that span the entire modern leopard distribution, as well as from Late Pleistocene remains. We find a deep bifurcation between African and Eurasian mitochondrial lineages (~ 710 Ka), with the European ancient samples as sister to all Asian lineages (~ 483 Ka). The modern and historical mainland Asian lineages share a relatively recent common ancestor (~ 122 Ka), and we find one Javan sample nested within these.ConclusionsThe phylogenetic placement of the ancient European leopard as sister group to Asian leopards suggests that these populations originate from the same out-of-Africa dispersal which founded the Asian lineages. The coalescence time found for the mitochondrial lineages aligns well with the earliest undisputed fossils in Eurasia, and thus encourages a re-evaluation of the identification of the much older putative leopard fossils from the region. The relatively recent ancestry of all mainland Asian leopard lineages suggests that these populations underwent a severe population bottleneck during the Pleistocene. Finally, although only based on a single sample, the unexpected phylogenetic placement of the Javan leopard could be interpreted as evidence for exchange of mitochondrial lineages between Java and mainland Asia, calling for further investigation into the evolutionary history of this subspecies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12862-018-1268-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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“…[10][11][12], habitat destruction [e.g. [13][14][15] and reduced prey availability [16,17] have severely impacted the distribution of this elusive predator, and leopards are now extinct in large parts of their historic Asian and African distribution ( Fig. 1) [7,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and its extinct Eurasian populations

Paijmans

Barlow

Foerster

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Background: Resolving the historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) is a complex issue, because patterns inferred from fossils and from molecular data lack congruence. Fossil evidence supports an African origin, and suggests that leopards were already present in Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. Analysis of DNA sequences however, suggests a more recent, Middle Pleistocene shared ancestry of Asian and African leopards. These contrasting patterns led researchers to propose a two-stage hypothesis of leopard dispersal out of Africa: an initial Early Pleistocene colonisation of Asia and a subsequent replacement by a second colonisation wave during the Middle Pleistocene. The status of Late Pleistocene European leopards within this scenario is unclear: were these populations remnants of the first dispersal, or do the last surviving European leopards share more recent ancestry with their African counterparts?Results: In this study, we generate and analyse mitogenome sequences from historical samples that span the entire modern leopard distribution, as well as from Late Pleistocene remains. We find a deep bifurcation between African and Eurasian mitochondrial lineages (~710 Ka), with the European ancient samples as sister to all Asian lineages (~483 Ka). The modern and historical mainland Asian lineages share a relatively recent common ancestor (~122 Ka), and we find one Javan sample nested within these. Conclusions:The phylogenetic placement of the ancient European leopard as sister group to Asian leopards suggests that these populations originate from the same out-of-Africa dispersal which founded the Asian lineages. The coalescence time found for the mitochondrial lineages aligns well with the earliest undisputed fossils in Eurasia, and thus encourages a re-evaluation of the identification of the much older putative leopard fossils from the region. The relatively recent ancestry of all mainland Asian leopard lineages suggests that these populations underwent a severe population bottleneck during the Pleistocene. Finally, although only based on a single sample, the unexpected phylogenetic placement of the Javan leopard could be interpreted as evidence for exchange of mitochondrial lineages between Java and mainland Asia, calling for further investigation into the evolutionary history of this subspecies.

show abstract

Learning from the past to prepare for the future: felids face continued threat from declining prey

Cited by 29 publications

References 70 publications

Trophic rewilding presents regionally specific opportunities for mitigating climate change

Trophic rewilding presents regionally specific opportunities for mitigating climate change

Historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and its extinct Eurasian populations

Historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and its extinct Eurasian populations

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