Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Miller, Gifford H.
• Fogel, Marilyn L.
• Magee, John W.
• Gagan, Michael K.
• Clarke, Simon J.
• Johnson, Beverly J.

Titel

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

Ist Teil von

• Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 2005-07, Vol.309 (5732), p.287-290

Ort / Verlag

Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

2005

Quelle

Science Online_科学在线

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• 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.