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} }
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…
354 Citations
Fifty millennia of catastrophic extinctions after human contact.
- Environmental Science, GeographyTrends in ecology & evolution
- 2005
The Aftermath of Megafaunal Extinction: Ecosystem Transformation in Pleistocene Australia
- Environmental Science, GeographyScience
- 2012
A high-resolution 130,000-year environmental record is used to resolve the cause and reconstruct the ecological consequences of extinction of Australia’s megafauna, suggesting that human arrival rather than climate caused megafaunal extinction, which then triggered replacement of mixed rainforest by sclerophyll vegetation.
Late Quaternary Extinctions: State of the Debate
- Environmental Science, Biology
- 2006
Results from recent studies suggest that humans precipitated extinction in many parts of the globe through combined direct (hunting) and perhaps indirect (competition, habitat alteration) impacts, but that the timing and geography of extinction might have been different and the worldwide magnitude less, had not climatic change coincided with human impacts in many places.
The Remaking of Australia's Ecology
- Environmental Science, GeographyScience
- 2005
Human occupation of Australia became widespread around 45,000 years ago. What role did humans play in the extinction of many of Australia9s large herbivores, which disappeared around the same time?…
Humans rather than climate the primary cause of Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in Australia
- Environmental Science, GeographyNature communications
- 2017
A continuous 150,000-year record offshore south-western Australia is presented and it is established that substantial changes in vegetation and fire regime occurred ∼70,000 years ago under a climate much drier than today.
Timing and dynamics of Late Pleistocene mammal extinctions in southwestern Australia
- Environmental Science, GeographyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2010
An exceptional faunal succession from Tight Entrance Cave, southwestern Australia is reported, which shows persistence of a diverse mammal community for at least 100 ka leading up to the earliest regional evidence of humans at 49 ka.
The process, biotic impact, and global implications of the human colonization of Sahul about 47,000 years ago
- Geography
- 2015
Human acceleration of animal and plant extinctions: A Late Pleistocene, Holocene, and Anthropocene continuum
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 2013
Revisiting the late Pleistocene mammal extinction record at Tight Entrance Cave, southwestern Australia
- Environmental Science, GeographyQuaternary Research
- 2011
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 16 REFERENCES
New Ages for the Last Australian Megafauna: Continent-Wide Extinction About 46,000 Years Ago
- Environmental Science, GeographyScience
- 2001
This work reports burial ages for megafauna from 28 sites and infer extinction across the continent around 46,400 years ago, ruling out extreme aridity at the Last Glacial Maximum as the cause of extinction, but not other climatic impacts; a "blitzkrieg" model of human-induced extinction; or an extended period of anthropogenic ecosystem disruption.
Pleistocene extinction of genyornis newtoni: human impact on australian megafauna
- Environmental Science, BiologyScience
- 1999
Simultaneous extinction of Genyornis at all sites during an interval of modest climate change implies that human impact, not climate, was responsible.
Extinctions of herbivorous mammals in the late Pleistocene of Australia in relation to their feeding ecology: No evidence for environmental change as cause of extinction
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 2004
It is shown that in both browsers and grazers the probability of extinction was very strongly related to body mass, and the body mass at which extinction became likely was similar in the two groups.
Dating the colonization of Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea): a review of recent research
- Geography
- 2004
65,000 years of vegetation change in central australia and the australian summer monsoon
- Environmental Science, GeographyScience
- 1999
Carbon isotopes in fossil emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) eggshell from Lake Eyre, South Australia, demonstrate that the relative abundance of C4 grasses varied substantially during the past 65,000 years, implying that the Australian monsoon was most effective between 45,000 and 65, thousands years ago and least effective during the Last Glacial Maximum.
Climatic change and Aboriginal burning in north-east Australia during the last two glacial/interglacial cycles
- Environmental Science, GeographyNature
- 1986
Long palynological records from continental deposits may be divided into two categories: detailed sequences seldom extending back much further than the most recent interglacial1–3, and more…
Causes and consequences of long-term climatic variability on the Australian continent
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 2003
1. Ice-volume forced glacial-interglacial cyclicity is the major cause of global climate variation within the late Quaternary period. Within the Australian region, this variation is expressed…
New ages for human occupation and climatic change at Lake Mungo, Australia
- Environmental Science, GeographyNature
- 2003
A new chronology corrects previous estimates for human burials at this important site and provides a new picture of Homo sapiens adapting to deteriorating climate in the world's driest inhabited continent.
Redating the onset of burning at Lynch's Crater (North Queensland): implications for human settlement in Australia
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 2001
Lynch's Crater preserves a continuous, high‐resolution record of environmental changes in north Queensland. This record suggests a marked increase in burning that appears to be independent of any…
A Late Quaternary pollen record from deep-sea core Fr10/95, GC17 offshore Cape Range Peninsula, northwestern Western Australia
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 2002