Inheritors of the Earth
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CHAPTER 4: STEAMING AHEAD
1. Gippoliti, S. & Hunter, C. (2008), Theropithecus gelada, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2008, downloaded 27 March 2016.
2. The air cools at approximately 0.5°C per 100m of increased elevation when the air is saturated with water, but nearer 1°C per 100m in dry air.
3. This is for Scenario RCP 8.5 (warming may not be this great if greenhouse gas controls are more effective in future). Barros, V. R. et al. (2015), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part B: Regional Aspects, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
4. Marino, J. & Sillero-Zubiri, C. (2013), Canis simensis, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013, downloaded 27 March 2016.
5. Sillero-Zubiri, C., Tattersall, F. H. & Macdonald, D. W. (1995), ‘Habitat selection and daily activity of giant mole-rats (Tachyoryctes macrocephalus): Significance to the Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) in the Afroalpine ecosystem’, Biological Conservation 72, 77–84.
6. The Bale Mountains National Park may be able to prevent this kind of encroachment.
7. The land that is any higher is too steep and rocky to support large numbers of burrowing giant mole-rats; and the area is much reduced.
8. Chen, I-C. et al. (2009), ‘Elevation increases in moth assemblages over 42 years on a tropical mountain’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 106, 1479–83; Chen, I-C. et al. (2011), ‘Asymmetric boundary shifts of tropical montane Lepidoptera over four decades of climate warming’, Global Ecology and Biogeography, 20, 34–45.
9. Pounds, J. A. et al. (2006), ‘Widespread amphibian extinctions from epidemic disease driven by global warming’, Nature, 439, 161–7. Most of the extinctions coincide with El Niño currents in the Pacific Ocean, altering temperatures, cloud cover and rainfall in the New World tropics. These hot years are superimposed on the background warming generated by human-caused climate change, so each new ‘peak’ is higher than the last (e.g. record-breaking 1997–8 El Niño peak temperatures, when many harlequin frogs disappeared, have now been exceeded by 2015–16 El Niño temperatures).
10. Thomas, C. D. et al. (2004), ‘Extinction risk from climate change’, Nature, 427, 145–8.
11. Stopping climate change is the top priority. However, so much climate change has already taken place and is certain to occur in future (e.g. because of existing power stations) that implementing measures to move populations is already the only realistic option for many species.
12. Coope, G. R. (1979), ‘Late Cenozoic fossil Coleoptera: Evolution, biogeography, and ecology’, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 10, 247–67.
13. Divers are called ‘loons’ in North America.
14. ‘Alluvial Archaeology in the Vale of York. The Geology of the Vale of York’, http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/valeofyork/geology.htm; and a presentation by Paul Buckland, http://www.thmcf.org/downloads/Humberhead%20Levels%20Rise%20and%20Fall.pdf.
15. Muscheler, R. et al. (2008), ‘Tree rings and ice cores reveal 14C calibration uncertainties during the Younger Dryas’, Nature Geoscience, 1, 263–7.
16. Human artefacts are known from Creswell Crags in the adjacent county of Derbyshire at this time.
17. Clark, P. U. et al. (2009), ‘The Last Glacial Maximum’, Science, 325, 710–14.
18. Mayle, F. E. et al. (2004), ‘Responses of Amazonian ecosystems to climatic and atmospheric carbon dioxide changes since the last glacial maximum’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B., 359, 499–514; Morley, R. J. (2000), Origin and Evolution of Tropical Rain Forests, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
19. Kuper, R. & Kröpelin, S. (2006), ‘Climate-controlled Holocene occupation in the Sahara: Motor of Africa’s evolution’, Science, 313, 803–7.
20. Smith, S. E. et al. (2013), ‘The past, present and potential future distributions of cold-adapted bird species’, Diversity and Distributions, 19, 352–62.
21. United Kingdom’s National Biodiversity Gateway: https://data.nbn.org.uk/.
22. Heath, J., Pollard, E. & Thomas, J. A. (1984), Atlas of Butterflies in Britain and Ireland, Harmondsworth: Viking. The one 1970–82 record from Scotland is thought to be a stray individual that had not established a breeding population.
23. Braschler, B. & Hill, J. K. (2007), ‘Role of larval host plants in the climate-driven range expansion of the butterfly Polygonia c-album’, Journal of Animal Ecology, 76, 415–23. Comma caterpillars also eat wych elm, but these trees are rarer than nettles and have declined, whereas nettles have increased.
24. Thomas, C. D. (2010), ‘Climate, climate change and range boundaries’, Diversity and Distributions, 16, 488–95; Illán, J. G. et al. (2014), ‘Precipitation and winter temperature predict long-term range-scale abundance changes in Western North American birds’, Global Change Biology, 20, 3351–64.
25. Chen, I-C. et al. (2011), ‘Rapid range shifts of species associated with high levels of climate warming’, Science, 333, 1024–6. This rate of movement is the median; some are moving much faster and others are barely moving.
26. Boyd, P. W. et al. (2013), ‘Marine phytoplankton temperature versus growth responses from polar to tropical waters–outcome of a scientific community-wide study’, PLOS ONE, 8, p.e63091.
27. Average annual temperature in Britain varies between 8.5°C (in the north) and 11°C (in the south).
28. Hawkins, B. A. et al. (2003), ‘Energy, water, and broad-scale geographic patterns of species richness’, Ecology, 84, 3105–17.
29. Menéndez, R. et al. (2006), ‘Species richness changes lag behind climate change’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 273, 1465–70. These climate-related diversity increases have taken place despite declines of many individual species, associated with changes to farming and forestry practices.
30. Pounds, J. A., Fogden, M. P. & Campbell, J. H. (1999), ‘Biological response to climate change on a tropical mountain,’ Nature, 398, 611–15.
31. Sommer, J. H. et al. (2010), ‘Projected impacts of climate change on regional capacities for global plant species richness’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 277, 2271–80; Reu, B. et al. (2011), ‘The role of plant functional trade-offs for biodiversity changes and biome shifts under scenarios of global climatic change’, Biogeosciences, 8, 1255–66; Venevskaia, I., Venevsky, S. & Thomas, C. D. (2013), ‘Projected latitudinal and regional changes in vascular plant diversity through climate change: Short-term gains and longer-term losses’, Biodiversity and Conservation, 22, 1467–83.
32. Mayhew, P. J. et al. (2012), ‘Biodiversity tracks temperature over time’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 109, 15141–5.
33. Wilson, R. J. et al. (2007), ‘An elevational shift in butterfly species richness and composition accompanying recent climate change’, Global Change Biology, 13, 1873–7.
34. Predictions for the world’s drylands are complicated because: there is uncertainty about local and regional patterns of future rainfall; increased evaporation at higher temperatures results in some drying, even if rainfall increases slightly; the soil affects water retention; and the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere allows plants to keep the stomatal pores in their leaves closed for more of the time (reducing moisture loss). There is also uncertainty about what will happen to diversity in the world’s hottest rainforests (because the future climate in these locations will be unlike any that currently exist).
CHAPTER 5: PANGEA REUNITED
1. Hofstetter, S. et al. (2006), ‘Late glacial and Holocene vegetation history in the Insubrian Southern Alps–new indications from a small-scale site’, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 15, 87–98.
2. Sandom, C. J. et al. (2014), ‘High herbivore density associated with vegetation diversity in interglacial ecosystems’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 111, 4162–7.
3. Evans, K. L. et al. (2010), ‘A conceptual framework for the colonisa
tion of urban areas: The blackbird Turdus merula as a case study’, Biological Reviews, 85, 643–67.
4. Walther, G.-R. et al. (2002), ‘Ecological responses to recent climate change’, Nature, 416, 389–95.
5. Volta, P. & Jepsen, N. (2008), ‘The recent invasion of Rutilus rutilus (L.) (Pisces: Cyprinidae) in a large South-Alpine lake: Lago Maggiore’, Journal of Limnology, 67, 163–70.
6. Hobbs, R. J. et al. (2006), ‘Novel ecosystems: Theoretical and management aspects of the new ecological world order’, Global Ecology & Biogeography 15, 1–7; Ellis, E. C. & Ramankutty, N. (2008), ‘Putting people in the map: Anthropogenic biomes of the world’, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 6, 439–47.
7. It is not always possible to distinguish between closely related species on the basis of fossil remains, so it is more reliable to count numbers of plant genera (plural of ‘genus’) than numbers of separate species. For example, different species of oak tree in the genus Quercus can have pollen grains that are too alike to distinguish easily.
8. Svenning, J. C. (2003), ‘Deterministic Plio-Pleistocene extinctions in the European cool-temperate tree flora’, Ecology Letters, 6, 646–53.
9. Russell, J. C. & Blackburn, T. M. (2016), ‘The rise of invasive species denialism’, Trends in Ecology & Evolution DOI 10.1016/j.tree.2016.10.012. The debate arises because defining a species as having ‘negative impact’ is a human construct. Scientists can agree on the facts but still differ in their interpretation: for instance, the arrival of evergreens around Maggiore increases the total diversity of the region (positive impact) but decreases the abundance of some of the deciduous trees that were there previously (negative impact).
10. Nielsen, S. V. et al. (2011), ‘New Zealand geckos (Diplodactylidae): Cryptic diversity in a post-Gondwanan lineage with trans-Tasman affinities’, Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution, 59, 1–22; England, R. (2013), New Zealand passerines: A contribution to passerine phylogeny’, M.Sc. thesis, Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey University; Mitchell, K. J. et al. (2014), ‘Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution’, Science, 344, 898–900; Carr, L. M. et al. (2015), ‘Analyses of the mitochondrial genome of Leiopelma hochstetteri argues against the full drowning of New Zealand’, Journal of Biogeography, 42, 1066–76.
11. Dyer, E. E. et al. (2017), ‘The global distribution and drivers of alien bird species richness’, PLOS Biology, 15, p.e2000942.
12. http://www.europe-aliens.org/default.do; trade is increasingly global, so Europe is probably no more than a century ahead of other regions.
13. Addison, D. J. & Matisoo-Smith, E. (2010), ‘Rethinking Polynesians’ origins: A West-Polynesia triple-I model’, Archaeology in Oceania, 45, 1–12.
14. Duncan, R. P., Boyer, A. G. & Blackburn, T. M. (2013), ‘Magnitude and variation of prehistoric bird extinctions in the Pacific’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 110, 6436–41.
15. Nuwer, R. (2013), ‘Doctors used to use live African frogs as pregnancy tests’, smithsonian.com.
16. Epidemics take place in hot years, as described in Chapter 4.
17. Young, H. S. et al. (2016), ‘Patterns, causes, and consequences of Anthropocene defaunation’, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 47, 333–58.
18. Most of the ‘damage’ attributed to invasive species on continents involves changes in the abundances, habitats and distributions of ‘native’ species, rather than the extinction of species. My emphasis is on whether entire species become extinct because there is no prospect that we can (or should aim to) maintain the exact status quo of each species in the face of climate change, habitat change, nitrogen deposition and invasions.
19. Chestnut blight is a disease that did not (quite) extinguish the American chestnut, but several species of plant-feeding insect that used to rely on this tree are thought to have become extinct.
20. Paine, R. T. (1969), ‘A note on trophic complexity and community stability’, American Naturalist, 103, 91–3.
21. Williamson, M. (1996), Biological Invasions, London: Chapman & Hall. Williamson recognizes that the percentage of species establishing at each stage varies, for example differing between animals and plants, and between continents and islands. It can be rather higher on isolated islands.
22. Thomas, C. D. & Palmer, G. (2015), ‘Non-native plants add to the British flora without negative consequences for native diversity’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 112, 4387–92.
23. Kauri dieback disease (an oomycete mould) threatens the survival of the most statuesque of the forest trees. This is a genuine concern that demands urgent action.
24. Vellend, M. et al. (2016), ‘Plant biodiversity change across scales during the Anthropocene’, Annual Review of Plant Biology, 68. DOI 10.1146/annurev-arplant-042916-040949.
25. Clayson, J. et al. (2006), New Zealand Naturalised Vascular Plant Checklist, Wellington: New Zealand Plant Conservation Network.
26. Sax, D. F. and Gaines, S. D. (2008), ‘Species invasions and extinction: The future of native biodiversity on islands’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 105 (Supplement 1), 11490–97.
27. Sax, D. F. & Gaines, S. D. (2003), ‘Species diversity: From global decreases to local increases’, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 18, 561–6.
28. Thomas, C. D. (2013), ‘The Anthropocene could raise biological diversity’, Nature, 502, 7; Roy, H. E. et al. (2012), Non-Native Species in Great Britain: Establishment, Detection and Reporting to Inform Effective Decision Making, London: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
29. Ellis, E. C., Antill, E. C. & Kreft, H. (2012), ‘All is not loss: Plant biodiversity in the Anthropocene’, PlOS ONE, 7, p.e30535.
30. Some British species have declined as a result of the arrival of foreign species, and a few (such as the red squirrel) have died out from parts of their British ranges; but they have not disappeared completely. All the invasion-threatened species in Britain still occur elsewhere in continental Europe.
CHAPTER 6: HEIRS TO THE WORLD
1. Durrell, G. (1966), Two in the Bush, London: Collins.
2. At the time of writing in 2016, the New Zealand government has set aside NZ$28m, which is less than a third of 1 per cent of the estimated cost. The project is not necessarily impossible, if new technologies can be developed. However, reinvasion will be a continuous threat for as long as transport continues.
3. http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/eradicating-rats-from-oceanic-islands/; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-33276540.
4. For example as an experiment on predator-inhabited islands and in large enclosures on the mainland to find out how New Zealand’s surviving animals and plants respond to pedestrian birds.
5. Pearce, F. (2015), The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will be Nature’s Salvation, Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
6. Carleton, M. D. & Musser, G. G. (2005), ‘Order Rodentia’, in Wilson, D. E. & Reeder, D. M. (eds.), Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, Volume 12, pp. 745–52, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press
7. Hand, S. J. et al. (2009), ‘Bats that walk: A new evolutionary hypothesis for the terrestrial behaviour of New Zealand’s endemic mystacinids’, BMC Evolutionary Biology, 9, 169.
8. Simmons, N. B. et al. (2008), ‘Primitive Early Eocene bat from Wyoming and the evolution of flight and echolocation’, Nature, 451, 818–21; Bininda-Emonds, O. R. P. et al. (2007), ‘The delayed rise of present-day mammals’, Nature, 446, 507–12; Meredith, R. W. et al. (2011), ‘Impacts of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution and KPg extinction on mammal diversification’, Science, 334, 521–4.
9. Jetz, W. et al. (2012), ‘The global diversity of birds in space and time’, Nature, 491, 444–8; Claramunt, S. & Cracraft, J. (2015), ‘A new time tree reveals Earth history’s imprint on the evolution of modern birds’, Science Advances, 1, e1501005.
10. Wright, N. A., Stea
dman, D. W. & Witt, C. C. (2016), ‘Predictable evolution toward flightlessness in volant island birds’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, p.201522931.
11. Garcia-R., J. C. & Trewick, S. A. (2014), ‘Dispersal and speciation in purple swamphens (Rallidae: Porphyrio)’, The Auk, 132, 140–55.
12. Migrant birds would have occasionally brought continental diseases to isolated islands, but the lack of insect vectors meant that many islands remained disease-free until humans inadvertently imported mosquitos.
13. For example, New Zealand’s strutting weka cannot fly, but it is sufficiently sprightly, pugnacious and fast-breeding that it has continued to survive in some parts of the New Zealand mainland.
14. Including Australia as a continent.
15. New Zealand is a bit different, because it is a fragment of continental land, and some New Zealand forms might have survived until the land eventually became reconnected to other continents.
16. Bacon, C. D. et al. (2015), ‘Biological evidence supports an early and complex emergence of the Isthmus of Panama’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 112, 6110–15.
17. Leigh, E. G., O’Dea, A. & Vermeij, G. J. (2014), ‘Historical biogeography of the Isthmus of Panama’, Biological Reviews, 89, 148–72.
18. Bacon, C. D. et al. (2015), ‘Biological evidence supports an early and complex emergence of the Isthmus of Panama’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 112, 6110–15.
19. The King Island, Kangaroo Island and Tasmanian emus did become extinct, but the Australian mainland species survived. The other very large Australian flightless birds were in the family Dromornithidae, which did become extinct when humans arrived.
20. Presumably, moas were slow, adopted ineffective defence strategies (e.g. those that might work against giant New Zealand eagles), did not recognize the danger, or their chicks were killed by predators that accompanied Maori colonists. Loss of giant insects after the arrival of kiore rats may also have deprived the chicks of food.
21. Relatively speaking; for a particular type of climate and habitat. Note that the past area (which may have changed since the last ice age) can be as relevant as the current area of a habitat.