Historic and prehistoric human-driven extinctions have reshaped global mammal diversity patterns
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Abstract
Aim To assess the extent to which humans have reshaped Earth's biodiversity, by estimating natural ranges of all late Quaternary mammalian species, and to compare diversity patterns based on these with diversity patterns based on current distributions. Location Globally. Methods We estimated species, functional and phylogenetic diversity patterns based on natural ranges of all mammalian species (n = 5747 species) as they could have been today in the complete absence of human influence through time. Following this, we compared macroecological analyses of current and natural diversity patterns to assess whether human-induced range changes bias evolutionary and ecological analyses based on current diversity patterns. Results We find that current diversity patterns have been drastically modified by humans, mostly due to global extinctions and regional to local extirpations. Current and natural diversities exhibit marked deviations virtually everywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa. These differences are strongest for terrestrial megafauna, but also important for all mammals combined. The human-induced changes led to biases in estimates of environmental diversity drivers, especially for terrestrial megafauna, but also for all mammals combined. Main conclusions Our results show that fundamental diversity patterns have been reshaped by human-driven extinctions and extirpations, highlighting humans as a major force in the Earth system. We thereby emphasize that estimating natural distributions and diversities is important to improve our understanding of the evolutionary and ecological drivers of diversity as well as for providing a benchmark for conservation.
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On average, large terrestrial mammals have been extirpated from 75% of their natural ranges.
“On average, large terrestrial mammals have been extirpated from 75% of their natural ranges ( 40 )”
From Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change (2019) · cites this paper as [40]
The Range modifications section (page unavailable) reports 67,306 current versus 242,960 estimated natural grid-cell occurrences for terrestrial megafauna, implying a loss of about 72%. The Estimated diversity section defines megafauna as over 44.5 kg, distinct from its larger-than-10-kg ‘large terrestrial species’ group. The paper therefore supports substantial range loss, but these pooled occurrences do not establish that large terrestrial mammals have, on average, lost 75% of their natural ranges. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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- Authors
- Faurby, S., & Svenning, J.-C.
- Affiliations
- Aarhus University (DK)
- Corresponding author
- Faurby, S.
- Venue
- Diversity and Distributions
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-08-20
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 1155-1166
- ISSN
- 0967-9952 (ISSN-L)
- 1366-9516
- OpenAlex
- W2952883628
- Cited by
- 226
- References
- 67
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 8
- FWCI
- 20.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Diversity and Distributions (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion)
- DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- European Research Council (ERC-2012-StG-310886-HISTFUNC)
- Danish Natural Science Research Council (#11-115750, #4090-00227)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecological Modeling › Species Distribution and Climate Change
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- human-driven extinction, mammal diversity, extirpation, functional diversity, phylogenetic diversity, human impact on biodiversity
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