Reports

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

Gifford H. Miller,¹ Marilyn L. Fogel,² John W. Magee,³ Michael K. Gagan,⁴ Simon J. Clarke,⁵ Beverly J. Johnson⁶

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 ¹³C 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.

¹ INSTAAR and Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309–0450 USA.
² Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1051 Broad Branch Road, Washington, DC 20015, USA.
³ Department of Earth and Marine Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
⁴ Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
⁵ Charles Sturt University, Locked Bag 588, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia.
⁶ Department of Geology, Bates College, Lewiston, ME 04240–6028, USA.

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Ecological consequences of Late Quaternary extinctions of megafauna.

C.N. Johnson (2009)
Proc R Soc B 276, 2509-2519
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Extinction implications of a chenopod browse diet for a giant Pleistocene kangaroo.

G. J. Prideaux, L. K. Ayliffe, L. R. G. DeSantis, B. W. Schubert, P. F. Murray, M. K. Gagan, and T. E. Cerling (2009)
PNAS 106, 11646-11650
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Fire in the Earth System.

D. M. J. S. Bowman, J. K. Balch, P. Artaxo, W. J. Bond, J. M. Carlson, M. A. Cochrane, C. M. D'Antonio, R. S. DeFries, J. C. Doyle, S. P. Harrison, et al. (2009)
Science 324, 481-484
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The "fire stick farming" hypothesis: Australian Aboriginal foraging strategies, biodiversity, and anthropogenic fire mosaics.

R. Bliege Bird, D. W. Bird, B. F. Codding, C. H. Parker, and J. H. Jones (2008)
PNAS 105, 14796-14801
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Late-surviving megafauna in Tasmania, Australia, implicate human involvement in their extinction.

C. S. M. Turney, T. F. Flannery, R. G. Roberts, C. Reid, L. K. Fifield, T. F. G. Higham, Z. Jacobs, N. Kemp, E. A. Colhoun, R. M. Kalin, et al. (2008)
PNAS 105, 12150-12153
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Colloquium Paper: Megafauna biomass tradeoff as a driver of Quaternary and future extinctions.

A. D. Barnosky (2008)
PNAS 105, 11543-11548
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Arid geomorphology: recent progress from an Earth System Science perspective.

S. Tooth (2008)
Progress in Physical Geography 32, 81-101
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Cryptic meteoric diagenesis in freshwater bivalves: Implications for radiocarbon dating.

G. E. Webb, G. J. Price, L. D. Nothdurft, L. Deer, and L. Rintoul (2007)
Geology 35, 803-806
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Dynamics of Acacia aneura--Triodia boundaries using carbon (14C and {delta} 13C) and nitrogen ({delta}15N) signatures in soil organic matter in central Australia.

D.M.J.S. Bowman, G. S. Boggs, L. D. Prior, and E. S. Krull (2007)
The Holocene 17, 311-318
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Biodiversity and extinction: losing the common and the widespread.

K. J. Gaston and R. A. Fuller (2007)
Progress in Physical Geography 31, 213-225
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Mammalian responses to Pleistocene climate change in southeastern Australia.

G. J. Prideaux, R. G. Roberts, D. Megirian, K. E. Westaway, J. C. Hellstrom, and J. M. Olley (2007)
Geology 35, 33-36
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