Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia

Frédérik Saltré; Marta Rodríguez-Rey; Barry W. Brook; Christopher N. Johnson; Chris S M Turney; John Alroy; Alan Cooper; Nicholas Beeton; Michael I. Bird; Damien A. Fordham; Richard Gillespie; Salvador Herrando-Pérez; Zenobia Jacobs; Gifford H. Miller; David Nogués-Bravo; Gavin J. Prideaux; Richard G. Roberts; Corey J A Bradshaw

doi:10.1038/ncomms10511

Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia

Frédérik Saltré^*, Marta Rodríguez-Rey, Barry W. Brook, Christopher N. Johnson, Chris S M Turney, John Alroy, Alan Cooper, Nicholas Beeton, Michael I. Bird, Damien A. Fordham, Richard Gillespie, Salvador Herrando-Pérez, Zenobia Jacobs, Gifford H. Miller, David Nogués-Bravo, Gavin J. Prideaux, Richard G. Roberts, Corey J A Bradshaw

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Late Quaternary megafauna extinctions impoverished mammalian diversity worldwide. The causes of these extinctions in Australia are most controversial but essential to resolve, because this continent-wide event presaged similar losses that occurred thousands of years later on other continents. Here we apply a rigorous metadata analysis and new ensemble-hindcasting approach to 659 Australian megafauna fossil ages. When coupled with analysis of several high-resolution climate records, we show that megafaunal extinctions were broadly synchronous among genera and independent of climate aridity and variability in Australia over the last 120,000 years. Our results reject climate change as the primary driver of megafauna extinctions in the world's most controversial context, and instead estimate that the megafauna disappeared Australia-wide ∼13,500 years after human arrival, with shorter periods of coexistence in some regions. This is the first comprehensive approach to incorporate uncertainty in fossil ages, extinction timing and climatology, to quantify mechanisms of prehistorical extinctions.

Original language	English
Article number	10511
Pages (from-to)	1-7
Number of pages	7
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10511
Publication status	Published - 29 Jan 2016

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Copyright the Author(s) 2016. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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Saltré, F., Rodríguez-Rey, M., Brook, B. W., Johnson, C. N., Turney, C. S. M., Alroy, J., Cooper, A., Beeton, N., Bird, M. I., Fordham, D. A., Gillespie, R., Herrando-Pérez, S., Jacobs, Z., Miller, G. H., Nogués-Bravo, D., Prideaux, G. J., Roberts, R. G., & Bradshaw, C. J. A. (2016). Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia. Nature Communications, 7, 1-7. [10511]. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10511

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title = "Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia",

abstract = "Late Quaternary megafauna extinctions impoverished mammalian diversity worldwide. The causes of these extinctions in Australia are most controversial but essential to resolve, because this continent-wide event presaged similar losses that occurred thousands of years later on other continents. Here we apply a rigorous metadata analysis and new ensemble-hindcasting approach to 659 Australian megafauna fossil ages. When coupled with analysis of several high-resolution climate records, we show that megafaunal extinctions were broadly synchronous among genera and independent of climate aridity and variability in Australia over the last 120,000 years. Our results reject climate change as the primary driver of megafauna extinctions in the world's most controversial context, and instead estimate that the megafauna disappeared Australia-wide ∼13,500 years after human arrival, with shorter periods of coexistence in some regions. This is the first comprehensive approach to incorporate uncertainty in fossil ages, extinction timing and climatology, to quantify mechanisms of prehistorical extinctions.",

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Saltré, F, Rodríguez-Rey, M, Brook, BW, Johnson, CN, Turney, CSM, Alroy, J, Cooper, A, Beeton, N, Bird, MI, Fordham, DA, Gillespie, R, Herrando-Pérez, S, Jacobs, Z, Miller, GH, Nogués-Bravo, D, Prideaux, GJ, Roberts, RG & Bradshaw, CJA 2016, 'Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia', Nature Communications, vol. 7, 10511, pp. 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10511

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AU - Cooper, Alan

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AU - Miller, Gifford H.

AU - Nogués-Bravo, David

AU - Prideaux, Gavin J.

AU - Roberts, Richard G.

AU - Bradshaw, Corey J A

N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2016. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia

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