Anthropogenic extinctions explain most size and trophic mismatches between large mammalian primary consumers from Amazonian and African rainforests

Abstract

Present-day Amazonia has an impoverished fauna of large folivorous mammals by comparison with African rainforests, but recent fossil discoveries suggest that late-Quaternary anthropogenic extinctions could account for most size and trophic faunal mismatches. The extent to which modern Amazonian ecology may be an artifact of prehistoric human intervention merits periodic re-evaluation as paleontological evidence of the Pleistocene megafauna continues to emerge.