A Multispecies Overkill Simulation of the End-Pleistocene Megafaunal Mass Extinction
@article{Alroy2001AMO, title={A Multispecies Overkill Simulation of the End-Pleistocene Megafaunal Mass Extinction}, author={John Alroy}, journal={Science}, year={2001}, volume={292}, pages={1893 - 1896} }
A computer simulation of North American end-Pleistocene human and large herbivore population dynamics correctly predicts the extinction or survival of 32 out of 41 prey species. Slow human population growth rates, random hunting, and low maximum hunting effort are assumed; additional parameters are based on published values. Predictions are close to observed values for overall extinction rates, human population densities, game consumption rates, and the temporal overlap of humans and extinct…
485 Citations
Macroecological analyses support an overkill scenario for late Pleistocene extinctions.
- Environmental ScienceBrazilian journal of biology = Revista brasleira de biologia
- 2004
A macroecological model is developed, in which prey population dynamic parameters, including abundance, geographic extent, and food supply for hunters, were derived from empirical allometric relationships with body mass, which illustrates the high selectivity of Pleistocene extinction in relation to body mass.
Modelling Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction and critical cases: A simple prey–predator perspective
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 2014
Estimates of Clovis-Era Megafaunal Populations and Their Extinction Risks
- Environmental Science
- 2009
In order to evaluate the contribution that Clovis-era hunting made to the end-Pleistocene extinctions, we must examine the North American empirical evidence fairly, without using models from…
On the roles of hunting and habitat size on the extinction of megafauna
- Environmental Science
- 2015
Explaining the Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions: Models, chronologies, and assumptions
- Environmental ScienceProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- 2002
It is demonstrated that in Greater Australia, where the extinctions occurred well before the end of the last Ice Age, estimates of the duration of coexistence between humans and megafauna remain imprecise, and the existing data do not prove the “blitzkrieg” model of overkill.
Investigating Anthropogenic Mammoth Extinction with Mathematical Models
- Environmental Science
- 2015
Two dierent approaches are employed to test the stability of the equilibria of a 2D ordinary dierential equations system and show evidence that human-mammoth interaction would have caused the extinction of the Columbian mammoth during the late Pleistocene.
Unraveling the consequences of the terminal Pleistocene megafauna extinction on mammal community assembly
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 2016
This work reconstructs mammal associations and body size distributions over time using tightly constrained temporal windows spanning full glacial to modern time periods and comprehensive faunal lists, and reveals interesting temporal patterns in the disassociation or co-occurrence of species through the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene.
A simulation of anthropogenic Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) extinction
- Environmental Science
- 2019
Abstract The cause of the extinction of the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) and other species of megafauna during the end of the Pleistocene epoch is an ongoing debate. In this study, we used…
Biotic responses of canids to the terminal Pleistocene megafauna extinction
- Environmental Science
- 2016
The results suggest that loss of megaherbivores and competition with humans likely outweighed advantages conferred from the loss of very large predators.
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 29 REFERENCES
Marsupial megafauna, Aborigines and the overkill hypothesis: application of predator‐prey models to the question of Pleistocene extinction in Australia
- Environmental Science
- 1998
It is suggested that for overkill to have driven medium to large marsupial megafauna extinct in the northern Eucalyptus savannas, Aboriginal densities must have been considerably higher than contemporary levels, or Aboriginal hunters astonishingly efficient, and climate change in the late Pleistocene may have played an important role in the extinction of Australianmegafauna.
Pleistocene extinctions: the pivotal role of megaherbivores
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 1987
The elimination of megaherbivore influence is the major factor differentiating habitat changes at the end of the terminal Pleistocene glaciation from those occurring at previous glacial-interglacial transitions.
Modelling Paleoindian dispersals
- Environmental Science
- 1998
It is reasonable to expect that the global dispersal of modern humans was influenced by habitat variation in space and time; but many simulation models average such variation into a single,…
Spatial Response of Mammals to Late Quaternary Environmental Fluctuations
- Geography, Environmental ScienceScience
- 1996
Analyses of fossil mammal faunas from 2945 localities in the United States demonstrate that the geographic ranges of individual species shifted at different times, in different directions, and at…
Extinctions in near time : causes, contexts, and consequences
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 1999
1 * Cretaceous Meteor Showers, the Human Ecological "Niche," and the Sixth Extinction.- 2 * Prehistoric Extinctions on Islands and Continents.- 3 * The Interaction of Humans, Megaherbivores, and…
Causes of Ecosystem Transformation at the End of the Pleistocene: Evidence from Mammal Body-Mass Distributions
- Environmental Science, GeographyEcosystems
- 1998
ABSTRACT Animal body sizes reflect the discontinuous architecture of the landscapes in which they live, and consequently their body-mass distributions are distinctly clumped rather than continuous.…
CLIMATIC VARIABILITY, PLANT PHENOLOGY, AND NORTHERN UNGULATES
- Environmental Science
- 1999
This work investigated the influences of large-scale climatic variability on plant phenology and ungulate population ecology by incorporating the NAO in statistical analyses of previously published data on the timing of flowering by plants in Norway and phenotypic and demographic variation in populations of northern ungulates.
Spatial Scaling of Species Composition: Body Masses of North American Land Mammals
- Environmental ScienceThe American Naturalist
- 1991
The nonrandom assembly of the North American terrestrial mammalian fauna based on body size and spatial scale indicates that species of modal size tend not to coexist in local habitat patches and they replace each other more frequently from habitat to habitat across the landscape than species of relatively large or small size.
The components of prédation as revealed by a study of small-mammal prédation of the European pine sawfly.
- Biology
- 1959
Predation, one such process that affects numbers, forms the subject of the present paper and is based on the density-dependence concept of Smith ( 1955) and the competition theory of Nicholson (1933).