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Rapid range shifts and megafaunal extinctions associated with late Pleistocene climate change.

ABSTRACT: Large-scale changes in global climate at the end of the Pleistocene significantly impacted ecosystems across North America. However, the pace and scale of biotic turnover in response to both the Younger Dryas cold period and subsequent Holocene rapid warming have been challenging to assess because of the scarcity of well dated fossil and pollen records that covers this period. Here we present an ancient DNA record from Hall's Cave, Texas, that documents 100 vertebrate and 45 plant taxa from bulk fossils and sediment. We show that local plant and animal diversity dropped markedly during Younger Dryas cooling, but while plant diversity recovered in the early Holocene, animal diversity did not. Instead, five extant and nine extinct large bodied animals disappeared from the region at the end of the Pleistocene. Our findings suggest that climate change affected the local ecosystem in Texas over the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, but climate change on its own may not explain the disappearance of the megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene.

SUBMITTER: Seersholm FV

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7265304 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Rapid range shifts and megafaunal extinctions associated with late Pleistocene climate change.

Seersholm Frederik V FV Werndly Daniel J DJ Grealy Alicia A Johnson Taryn T Keenan Early Erin M EM Lundelius Ernest L EL Winsborough Barbara B Farr Grayal Earle GE Toomey Rickard R Hansen Anders J AJ Shapiro Beth B Waters Michael R MR McDonald Gregory G Linderholm Anna A Stafford Thomas W TW Bunce Michael M

Nature communications 20200602 1

Large-scale changes in global climate at the end of the Pleistocene significantly impacted ecosystems across North America. However, the pace and scale of biotic turnover in response to both the Younger Dryas cold period and subsequent Holocene rapid warming have been challenging to assess because of the scarcity of well dated fossil and pollen records that covers this period. Here we present an ancient DNA record from Hall's Cave, Texas, that documents 100 vertebrate and 45 plant taxa from bulk ...[more]

PMID: 32488006

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Rapid range shifts and megafaunal extinctions associated with late Pleistocene climate change.

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Rapid range shifts and megafaunal extinctions associated with late Pleistocene climate change.

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