Millennial-scale faunal record reveals differential resilience of European large mammals to human impacts across the Holocene

Abstract

The use of short-term indicators for understanding patterns and processes of biodiversity loss can mask longer-term faunal responses to human pressures. We use an extensive database of approximately 18 700 mammalian zooarchaeological records for the last 11 700 years across Europe to reconstruct spatio-temporal dynamics of Holocene range change for 15 large-bodied mammal species. European mammals experienced protracted, non-congruent range losses, with significant declines starting in some species approximately 3000 years ago and continuing to the present, and with the timing, duration and magnitude of declines varying individually between species. Some European mammals became globally extinct during the Holocene, whereas others experienced limited or no significant range change. These findings demonstrate the relatively early onset of prehistoric human impacts on postglacial biodiversity, and mirror species-specific patterns of mammalian extinction during the Late Pleistocene. Herbivores experienced significantly greater declines than carnivores, revealing an important historical extinction filter that informs our understanding of relative resilience and vulnerability to human pressures for different taxa. We highlight the importance of large-scale, long-term datasets for understanding complex protracted extinction processes, although the dynamic pattern of progressive faunal depletion of European mammal assemblages across the Holocene challenges easy identification of ‘static’ past baselines to inform current-day environmental management and restoration.

Adapt or die—Response of large herbivores to environmental changes in Europe during the Holocene

“…years bp; Walker et al, 2012) tree migration and forest expansion was followed by human expansion and the development of agriculture during the Neolithic (between 7,000 and 2,600 cal. It created dynamic habitat conditions and strongly limited access to preferred habitats for wild animals, and influenced their distribution, densities, fitness or food habits, and in the worst cases led to population extirpations or species extinctions (Crees, Carbone, Sommer, Benecke, & Turvey, 2016;Řičánková, Robovský, Riegert, & Zrzavý, 2015;Rosvold, Andersen, Linnell, & Hufthammer, 2013). The start of the Neolithic resulted in demographic explosion and increasing human pressure on the environment (Gignoux, Henn, & Mountain, 2011;Shennan et al, 2013), leading to progressive deforestation of the continent (Kaplan, Krumhardt, & Zimmermann, 2009;.…”

Russia–UK Collaboration in Paleontology: Past, Present, and Future

“…large-bodied mammalian grazers and browsers experienced significantly earlier declines than mammalian carnivores; Crees et al 2016). It is again likely that reduction or removal of distinct faunal guilds during the Holocene would have triggered wider ecological knock-on effects, such as shifts in plant community composition following both removal of large herbivores (cf.…”

“…These include (Fig. 7) global extinctions of the final remnant populations of two Pleistocene survivors, the steppe bison Bison priscus (persisted until 9,800 ya in Taimyr and 8,900 ya in western Chukotka; MacPhee et al 2002;Kirillova et al 2013) and the giant deer Megaloceros giganteus (persisted until 7,700 ya in the Urals; Stuart et al 2004), and the more recent disappearance of aurochs (Bos primigenius) in the late Holocene (Crees et al 2016). The Holocene record also shows that many still-extant species had much broader postglacial geographical distributions in Russia.…”

“…However, widescale macroecological analysis of patterns of mammalian range loss across Europe, including data from Russia, has revealed that prehistoric human impacts on postglacial biodiversity began early on during the Holocene, and that the dynamic pattern of progressive faunal modification of European mammal assemblages across the Holocene challenges easy identification of 'static' past baselines that could act as benchmarks for current-day environmental management and restoration (Crees et al 2016). …”

Data Curation: How and Why. A Showcase with Re-use Scenarios.

“…On the basis of this huge compilation of data the researchers investigated changes in skeletons, habitat, human-animal relations and many other aspects. See for example [Crees et al 2016;Sommer et al 2014] among other project publications.…”