• DOI:10.1126/SCIENCE.1111288
• Corpus ID: 22761857

Ecosystem Collapse in Pleistocene Australia and a Human Role in Megafaunal Extinction

@article{Miller2005EcosystemCI,
  title={Ecosystem Collapse in Pleistocene Australia and a Human Role in Megafaunal Extinction},
  author={Gifford H. Miller and Marilyn L. Fogel and John W. Magee and Michael K. Gagan and Simon J. Clarke and Beverly J. Johnson},
  journal={Science},
  year={2005},
  volume={309},
  pages={287 - 290}
}

• G. Miller, M. Fogel, +3 authors Beverly J. Johnson
• Published 8 July 2005
• Environmental Science
• Science

Most of Australia's largest mammals became extinct 50,000 to 45,000 years ago, shortly after humans colonized the continent. Without exceptional climate change at that time, a human cause is inferred, but a mechanism remains elusive. A 140,000-year record of dietary δ13C documents a permanent reduction in food sources available to the Australian emu, beginning about the time of human colonization; a change replicated at three widely separated sites and in the marsupial wombat. We speculate that human firing of landscapes rapidly converted a drought-adapted mosaic of trees, shrubs, and nutritious grasslands to the modern fire-adapted desert scrub. Animals that could adapt survived; those that could not, became extinct.