Phylogenetic Evidence Supports the Effect of Traits on Late-Quaternary Megafauna Extinction in the Context of Human Activity

IF 6.3 1区环境科学与生态学 Q1 ECOLOGY

Global Ecology and Biogeography Pub Date : 2025-06-28 DOI:10.1111/geb.70078

Rhys Taylor Lemoine, Robert Buitenwerf, Sören Faurby, Jens-Christian Svenning

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Aim

The late-Quaternary extinctions, which affected primarily large mammals, are strongly connected to the migration of modern humans out of sub-Saharan Africa and tropical Asia (the Palaeotropics), and human hunting remains one of the greatest threats to large mammals globally. Species traits are known to affect vulnerability to human impacts in other (non-megafauna) taxa and so here we conduct an exploratory analysis to test how traits affect the risk of megafaunal species being driven to extinction by humans—both prehistorically in species that are already extinct and currently in species threatened by hunting.

Location

Global.

Time

Late Pleistocene and Holocene, 129–0 kya.

Major Taxa Studied

Mammals with a body mass ≥ 9 kg.

Methods

We used phylogenetic logistic regression to analyse the effects of 17 functional, biogeographical, and phylogenetic traits on the incidence of extinction in 544 extinct and extant (196 and 348, respectively) megafauna species.

Results

Our primary finding was that, just as Palaeotropical species experienced a lower incidence of extinction compared to megafauna elsewhere, species on other continents that were more closely related to Palaeotropical species also had lower extinction compared to those more distantly related. We also found support for higher extinction in island endemics, larger-bodied species and plantigrade (flat-footed) species.

Main Conclusions

Larger, more insular and plantigrade species were more vulnerable to human impacts due to preferential hunting and/or vulnerability to specific hunting techniques. Older, hominin-driven extinctions in the Palaeotropics (before the Late Pleistocene) may have filtered out species with vulnerable trait combinations, rendering Palaeotropical species and their non-Palaeotropical relatives more resistant to later human impacts. Our finding that several of the same traits influence extinction threat in places where hunting of megafauna is still ubiquitous has implications for the contextualisation of prehistoric megafauna extinctions and for modern conservation and restoration.

Abstract Image

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系统发育证据支持人类活动背景下，性状对晚第四纪巨型动物灭绝的影响

第四纪晚期的物种灭绝主要影响大型哺乳动物，这与现代人类从撒哈拉以南非洲和热带亚洲（古热带）的迁徙密切相关，人类狩猎仍然是全球大型哺乳动物面临的最大威胁之一。众所周知，物种特征会影响其他（非巨型动物）类群对人类影响的脆弱性，因此我们在这里进行了一项探索性分析，以测试物种特征是如何影响巨型动物物种被人类灭绝的风险的——包括史前已经灭绝的物种和目前受到狩猎威胁的物种。位置全球。时间晚更新世和全新世，129-0 kya。体重≥9 kg的哺乳动物的主要分类群。方法采用系统发育logistic回归分析了544种已灭绝和现存巨型动物（分别为196种和348种）的17个功能、生物地理和系统发育性状对灭绝发生率的影响。我们的主要发现是，正如古热带物种的灭绝率比其他地方的巨型动物低一样，与古热带物种关系更密切的其他大陆物种的灭绝率也比那些关系更远的物种低。我们还发现，岛屿特有物种、体型较大的物种和植物（平足）物种的灭绝率更高。主要结论：由于优先狩猎和/或特定狩猎技术的影响，体型更大、更多的岛屿和植物物种更容易受到人类的影响。在古热带地区（晚更新世之前），由古人类驱动的更古老的灭绝可能过滤掉了具有脆弱性状组合的物种，使古热带物种及其非古热带亲缘物种更能抵抗后来的人类影响。我们发现，在巨型动物狩猎仍然普遍存在的地方，有几个相同的特征影响着灭绝威胁，这对史前巨型动物灭绝的背景化和现代保护和恢复都有影响。

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来源期刊

Global Ecology and Biogeography 环境科学-生态学

CiteScore

12.10

自引率

3.10%

发文量

170

审稿时长

3 months

期刊介绍： Global Ecology and Biogeography (GEB) welcomes papers that investigate broad-scale (in space, time and/or taxonomy), general patterns in the organization of ecological systems and assemblages, and the processes that underlie them. In particular, GEB welcomes studies that use macroecological methods, comparative analyses, meta-analyses, reviews, spatial analyses and modelling to arrive at general, conceptual conclusions. Studies in GEB need not be global in spatial extent, but the conclusions and implications of the study must be relevant to ecologists and biogeographers globally, rather than being limited to local areas, or specific taxa. Similarly, GEB is not limited to spatial studies; we are equally interested in the general patterns of nature through time, among taxa (e.g., body sizes, dispersal abilities), through the course of evolution, etc. Further, GEB welcomes papers that investigate general impacts of human activities on ecological systems in accordance with the above criteria.