Prehistoric Extinctions of Pacific Island Birds: Biodiversity Meets Zooarchaeology

Steadman, David W.

doi:10.1126/science.267.5201.1123

Cited by 690 publications

(508 citation statements)

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“…Pest (Dahl 1984a, b;Cocklin and Keen 2000;Steadman and Martin 2003), as well as natural disturbances such as hurricanes (Craig et al 1994a;Elmqvist et al 1994;Pierson et al 1996;Hjerpe et al 2001;Whistler 2002;McConkey et al 2004a). Fossil evidence indicates the majority of Polynesian bird and bat species became extinct or were extirpated in the wake of human colonisation (Steadman 1993(Steadman , 1995Koopman and Steadman 1995). Indigenous Polynesian island fruit bats and birds are key pollinators and seed dispersers of native rainforest flora (Fujita and Tuttle 1991;Cox et al 1991;McConkey and Drake 2002;Meehan et al 2002;).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fossil evidence indicates the majority of Polynesian bird and bat species became extinct or were extirpated in the wake of human colonisation (Steadman 1993(Steadman , 1995Koopman and Steadman 1995). Indigenous Polynesian island fruit bats and birds are key pollinators and seed dispersers of native rainforest flora (Fujita and Tuttle 1991;Cox et al 1991;McConkey and Drake 2002;Meehan et al 2002;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Haberle¹,

Stevenson²,

Prebble³

2010

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terra australis 32Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present.Since the beginning of the series, the basic colour on the spine and cover has distinguished the regional distribution of topics as follows: ochre for Australia, green for New Guinea, red for South-East Asia and blue for the Pacific Islands. From 2001, issues with a gold spine will include conference proceedings, edited papers and monographs which in topic or desired format do not fit easily within the original arrangements. All volumes are numbered within the same series. Copyright of the text remains with the contributors/authors, 2009. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. Among saltbush greyer than seaweed we boardwalk the yeasting waves of the old golden-perch pond. List of volumes in Terra AustralisRabbit dung dots a lake bottom dry since their coming -only once, last century, after seven inches of rain a farmer had to rescue his sheep by boat.The roo bounces down-slope, a brown branch crackling.The professor's eye, noting the local runoff and what the westerlies do, observes seas that rush in and out of a continent's middle, salt lakes spreading and emptying, hills pimpling up and down with cartoon-like speed, or gullying themselves into extinction, rainforests and deserts zipping back and forth like Tom and Jerry. A human mouse plague swiftly swarms, perhaps soon gone.Impermanent planet. Impermanent surface. All under air and water. The lunette is a wave, a dumper of sand, a collapsing tower in the mad rabbit years when its top blew off and old bones winked through, with a vault's worth of fine stone cores.Once so simply mislaid in sand, now so obligingly sluiced out to the un-subincised world that smiles at stone knives. terra australis 32Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes v You might as well offer your table knife to a carpenter.Cane grass and the Dreamtime's stone fight the eroding rivulets together. In today's rare downpour each lost core, or blunted scraper crowns some tiny eroding hillock, plops its anchor in the dissolving silts.The bettong whose skin took off the stone tool's edge has vanished -sacrifice to future fertility.Through the softening soil Homo sapiens's skeleton bumps up like a carp's back.Waits for the wind to shave it off in pieces.A D-section and a ti...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Haberle¹,

Stevenson²,

Prebble³

2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Carbon dating puts the arrival of the fi rst humans, intrepid Polynesian sailors, around the year 1200 (Wilmshurst et al 2011 ). Pollen counts from soil cores and other records show that they found a lushly forested island with diverse fauna, particularly birds (Bahn and Flenley 1992 ;Steadman 1995 ) . Population increased exponentially, and as it did, the islanders harvested trees to provide wood and fi ber for fuel, boats, structures, ropes, and tools.…”

Section: Where Is the Leverage?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most of the bird species living on Easter Island became at least locally extinct. Only 1 of about 25 indigenous species still nests on the island today (Steadman 1995 ) . Eventually, fi shing, the other main source of food, fell as boats, lines, and hooks, all made from wood, could no longer be replaced.…”

Section: Where Is the Leverage?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustaining Sustainability: Creating a Systems Science in a Fragmented Academy and Polarized World

Sterman¹

2012

Sustainability Science

155

174

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From climate change, deforestation, and depletion of fossil fuels to overexploited fi sheries, species extinction, and poisons in our food and water, our society is unsustainable and it is getting worse fast. Many advocate that overcoming these problems requires the development of systems thinking. We have long been told that the unsustainability of our society arises because we treat the world as unlimited and problems unconnected when we live on a fi nite "spaceship Earth" in which "there is no away" and "everything is connected to everything else." The challenge lies in moving from slogans to speci fi c tools and processes that help us understand complexity, design better policies, facilitate individual and organizational learning, and catalyze the technical, economic, social, political, and personal changes we need to create a sustainable society. Here I outline a design for a systems science of sustainability that rises to this challenge. Where the dynamics of complex systems are conditioned by multiple feedbacks, time delays, accumulations, and nonlinearities, our mental models generally ignore these elements of dynamic complexity; where the consequences of our actions spill out across time and space and across disciplinary boundaries, our universities, corporations, and governments are organized in silos that focus on the short term and fragment knowledge. I describe how sustainability research, teaching, and engagement with the policy process can be organized to provide scienti fi cally grounded, reliable knowledge that crosses disciplinary boundaries, that engages multiple stakeholders, that grapples with unavoidable issues of ethics, values, and purpose, and that leads to action.

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“…Islands are an ideal system to examine, because they are spatially segregated, but are also of importance, as they are home to many potentially important species under threat (Steadman 1995 ). We assume islands are associated with a greater ED than mainland areas, since islands are more isolated and therefore should be more likely to accumulate ED than other landforms.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metapopulation Capacity Meets Evolutionary Distinctness: Spatial Fragmentation Complements Phylogenetic Rarity in Prioritization

Schnell

Safi

2016

Biodiversity Conservation and Phylogenetic Systematics

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Many species have declined or already gone extinct due to the human activities across the world causing what is termed the current sixth mass extinction event. The biggest determinant of species survival is the availability of a network of suitable habitat, affecting population size and eventual extinction risk. Considering that modern technology allows us to effi ciently quantify habitat loss, species distribution data can inform us of the required minimum connectivity of habitats. Evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) is already part of conservation schemes to prioritize rare traits and unique phylogenetic history. However, so far none of these prioritisations quantifi es the spatial constraints of a species to estimate long-term persistence based on the fragmentation of the landscape. Metapopulation capacity (λ M ) is one such measurement for quantifying fragmentation. Here we propose a combination of metapopulation capacity and phylogenetic distinctiveness to prioritize important specifi c habitat patches for evolutionary distinct species. We applied the new framework to prioritize island mammals and found Data Defi cient and Least Concern species with a high combined value in ED and λ M . Balancing between the extinction risks of solitary islands and the potential loss of unique evolutionary history of rare species on these islands can be a worthwhile exercise in prioritization schemes.

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Prehistoric Extinctions of Pacific Island Birds: Biodiversity Meets Zooarchaeology

Cited by 690 publications

References 41 publications

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Sustaining Sustainability: Creating a Systems Science in a Fragmented Academy and Polarized World

Metapopulation Capacity Meets Evolutionary Distinctness: Spatial Fragmentation Complements Phylogenetic Rarity in Prioritization

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