TY - JOUR
T1 - Micro Methods for Megafauna
T2 - Novel Approaches to Late Quaternary Extinctions and Their Contributions to Faunal Conservation in the Anthropocene
AU - Swift, Jillian A.
AU - Bunce, Michael
AU - Dortch, Joe
AU - Douglass, Kristina
AU - Faith, J. Tyler
AU - Fellows Yates, James A.
AU - Field, Judith
AU - Haberle, Simon G.
AU - Jacob, Eileen
AU - Johnson, Chris N.
AU - Lindsey, Emily
AU - Lorenzen, Eline D.
AU - Louys, Julien
AU - Miller, Gifford
AU - Mychajliw, Alexis M.
AU - Slon, Viviane
AU - Villavicencio, Natalia A.
AU - Waters, Michael R.
AU - Welker, Frido
AU - Wood, Rachel
AU - Petraglia, Michael
AU - Boivin, Nicole
AU - Roberts, Patrick
N1 - Funding Information:
This article arose from the "Megafauna and Methods: New Approaches to the Study of Megafaunal Extinctions" workshop hosted and funded by the Department of Archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the European Research Council (grant no. 295719 to MP). We are grateful to Michelle O'Reilly for the figure artwork.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - Drivers of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions are relevant to modern conservation policy in a world of growing human population density, climate change, and faunal decline. Traditional debates tend toward global solutions, blaming either dramatic climate change or dispersals of Homo sapiens to new regions. Inherent limitations to archaeological and paleontological data sets often require reliance on scant, poorly resolved lines of evidence. However, recent developments in scientific technologies allow for more local, context-specific approaches. In the present article, we highlight how developments in five such methodologies (radiocarbon approaches, stable isotope analysis, ancient DNA, ancient proteomics, microscopy) have helped drive detailed analysis of specific megafaunal species, their particular ecological settings, and responses to new competitors or predators, climate change, and other external phenomena. The detailed case studies of faunal community composition, extinction chronologies, and demographic trends enabled by these methods examine megafaunal extinctions at scales appropriate for practical understanding of threats against particular species in their habitats today.
AB - Drivers of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions are relevant to modern conservation policy in a world of growing human population density, climate change, and faunal decline. Traditional debates tend toward global solutions, blaming either dramatic climate change or dispersals of Homo sapiens to new regions. Inherent limitations to archaeological and paleontological data sets often require reliance on scant, poorly resolved lines of evidence. However, recent developments in scientific technologies allow for more local, context-specific approaches. In the present article, we highlight how developments in five such methodologies (radiocarbon approaches, stable isotope analysis, ancient DNA, ancient proteomics, microscopy) have helped drive detailed analysis of specific megafaunal species, their particular ecological settings, and responses to new competitors or predators, climate change, and other external phenomena. The detailed case studies of faunal community composition, extinction chronologies, and demographic trends enabled by these methods examine megafaunal extinctions at scales appropriate for practical understanding of threats against particular species in their habitats today.
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U2 - 10.1093/biosci/biz105
DO - 10.1093/biosci/biz105
M3 - Review article
C2 - 31719710
AN - SCOPUS:85075067794
VL - 69
SP - 877
EP - 887
JO - BioScience
JF - BioScience
SN - 0006-3568
IS - 11
ER -