The Archaeological Record of Human Impacts on Animal Populations

摘要: Recent archaeological research has fundamentally altered our understanding of the scope past human impacts on nondomesticated animal populations. Predictions derived from foraging theory concerning abundance histories high-return prey and diet breadth have been met in many parts world. People are known to introduced a broad variety animals, sponges agoutis rats, remarkably set contexts, turn causing wide secondary impacts. By increasing incidence fire, colonists some cases transformed nature vegetation colonized landscape, dramatically affecting populations those landscapes. In island settings, these triple threats--predation, biotic introductions, alteration--routinely led extinctions but there is no evidence that small-scale societies caused extinction by predation alone islands or continents. Indeed, recent history this famous argument suggests it better seen as statement faith about rather than an appeal reason. Perhaps most importantly, burgeoning knowledge animals important implications for conservation biology future.