Megafauna extinctions in the late-Quaternary are linked to human range expansion, not climate change

Abstract

The Earth has lost approximately half of its large mammal species (≥45 kg, one-third of species ≥9 kg) over the past 120,000 years, resulting in depauperate megafauna communities worldwide. Despite substantial interest and debate for over a century, the reasons for these exceptionally high extinction rates and major transformation of the biosphere remain contested. The predominant explanations are climate change, hunting by modern humans (Homo sapiens), or a combination of both. To evaluate the evidence for each hypothesis, statistical models were constructed to test the predictive power of prehistoric human and hominin presence and migration on megafauna extinction severity and on extinction bias toward larger species. Models with anthropic predictors were compared to models that considered late-Quaternary (120–0 kya) climate change and it was found that models including human factors outperformed all purely climatic models. These results thus support an overriding impact of Homo sapiens on megafauna extinctions. Given the disproportionate impact of large-bodied animals on vegetation structure, plant dispersal, nutrient cycling and co-dependent biota, this simplification and downsizing of mammal faunas worldwide represents the first planetary-scale, human-driven transformation of the environment.