Environmental correlates of the Late Quaternary regional extinctions of large and small Palaearctic mammals

Most studies of mammal extinctions during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition explore the relative effects of climate change vs. human impacts on these extinctions, but the relative importance of the different environmental factors involved remains poorly understood. Moreover, these studies are strongly biased towards megafauna, which may have been more influenced by human hunting than species of small body size. We examined the potential environmental causes of Pleistocene–Holocene mammal extinctions by linking regional environmental characteristics with the regional extinction rates of large and small mammals in 14 Palaearctic regions. We found that regional extinction rates were larger for megafauna, but extinction patterns across regions were similar for both size groups, emphasizing the importance of environmental change as an extinction factor as opposed to hunting. Still, the bias towards megafauna extinctions was larger in Southern Europe and smaller in central Eurasia. The loss...

现有关于更新世-全新世过渡期（Pleistocene–Holocene transition）哺乳动物灭绝的研究，多聚焦于气候变化与人类活动对灭绝事件的相对影响，但学界对其中涉及的各类环境因子的相对重要性仍缺乏深入认知。此外，此类研究对巨型动物群（megafauna）存在显著偏向——相较于小型体型物种，巨型动物群可能更易受人类狩猎活动的影响。本研究通过将14个古北界（Palaearctic）区域的区域环境特征与该区域内大、小型哺乳动物的区域灭绝速率相关联，探讨了更新世-全新世哺乳动物灭绝的潜在环境诱因。研究结果显示，巨型动物群的区域灭绝速率更高，但两类体型物种的区域灭绝模式并无显著差异，这凸显了环境变化而非狩猎活动作为灭绝驱动因子的重要性。值得注意的是，巨型动物群灭绝的研究偏向在南欧更为显著，而在欧亚大陆中部则相对较弱。物种丧失……