Fossil birds from the hawaiian islands: evidence for wholesale extinction by man before Western contact.

摘要: Thousands of fossil bird bones from the Hawaiian Islands collected since 1971 include remains at least 39 species land birds that are not known to have survived into historic period; this more than doubles number endemic previously main islands. Bones were found in deposits late Quaternary age; most Holocene and many contemporaneous with Polynesian culture. The loss appears be due predation destruction lowland habitats by humans before arrival Europeans. Because historically fauna flora represent only afraction natural diversity, biogeographical inferences about processes based on taxa may misleading or incorrect.