Magnitude and variation of prehistoric bird extinctions in the Pacific

Richard P. Duncan, Alison G. Boyer, and Tim M. Blackburn
PNAS April 16, 2013 110 (16) 6436-6441; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1216511110

  1. Edited by Robert E. Ricklefs, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO, and approved February 26, 2013 (received for review September 21, 2012)

Abstract

The largest extinction event in the Holocene occurred on Pacific islands, where Late Quaternary fossils reveal the loss of thousands of bird populations following human colonization of the region. However, gaps in the fossil record mean that considerable uncertainty surrounds the magnitude and pattern of these extinctions. We use a Bayesian mark-recapture approach to model gaps in the fossil record and to quantify losses of nonpasserine landbirds on 41 Pacific islands. Two-thirds of the populations on these islands went extinct in the period between first human arrival and European contact, with extinction rates linked to island and species characteristics that increased susceptibility to hunting and habitat destruction. We calculate that human colonization of remote Pacific islands caused the global extinction of close to 1,000 species of nonpasserine landbird alone; nonpasserine seabird and passerine extinctions will add to this total.

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: richard.duncan{at}canberra.edu.au.

  • Author contributions: R.P.D., A.G.B., and T.M.B. designed research; A.G.B. performed research; R.P.D. analyzed data; and R.P.D., A.G.B., and T.M.B. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1216511110/-/DCSupplemental.

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Prehistoric bird extinctions in the Pacific
Richard P. Duncan, Alison G. Boyer, Tim M. Blackburn
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Apr 2013, 110 (16) 6436-6441; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1216511110
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