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Undiscovered bird extinctions obscure the true magnitude of human-driven extinction waves
The true number of human-driven bird extinctions is likely larger than we think. Here, the authors combine recorded extinctions with estimates from the fossil record to suggest that ~1400 bird species have gone extinct since the Late Pleistocene.
- Rob Cooke
- , Ferran Sayol
- & Søren Faurby
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| Open Access
The emergence of modern zoogeographic regions in Asia examined through climate–dental trait association patterns
The timing of the emergence of the modern Asian terrestrial biota is unclear. Here, the authors apply redescription mining to herbivore dental trait data, finding that different aspects of modern zoogeographic patterns originated in the Pliocene and Middle and Late Miocene.
- Liping Liu
- , Esther Galbrun
- & Indrė Žliobaitė
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A fungal plant pathogen discovered in the Devonian Rhynie Chert
Here, the authors describe a pathogenic fungus from a 400-million-year-old fossil plant from the Devonian Rhynie Chert in Scotland. They use advanced imaging methods to determine that the fungus belongs to the sac fungi, the most diverse group of Fungi today.
- Christine Strullu-Derrien
- , Tomasz Goral
- & David L. Hawksworth
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A neotropical perspective on the uniqueness of the Holocene among interglacials
A 670,000-year vegetation and climate history from Lake Junín, Peru, showed that the last interglacial was the warmest while the current interglacial had uniquely high fire frequencies that were caused by humans; fundamentally altering the ecosystem.
- J. Schiferl
- , M. Kingston
- & M. B. Bush
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Intra-gastric phytoliths provide evidence for folivory in basal avialans of the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota
Birds exhibit extensive close ecological interactions with flowering plants, but the evolutionary origins of those relationships remain unclear. Plant phytolith analysis of stomach contents of the Early Cretaceous long-tailed bird Jeholornis reveals the earliest example of leaf eating by birds.
- Yan Wu
- , Yong Ge
- & Zhonghe Zhou
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Disruption of trait-environment relationships in African megafauna occurred in the middle Pleistocene
Mammalian megafaunal biodiversity has declined since the Plio-Pleistocene. Here, the authors apply ecometric methods to evaluate the functional link between eastern African herbivorous megafauna and their environments, showing that some biodiversity loss coincided with community ecological function disturbance.
- Daniel A. Lauer
- , A. Michelle Lawing
- & Jenny L. McGuire
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A mid-Cambrian tunicate and the deep origin of the ascidiacean body plan
Our understanding of the origins of tunicates, an important group of filter-feeding marine invertebrate chordates, is limited due to a poor fossil record. Here, the authors present a 500 million year old tunicate fossil, demonstrating that the modern tunicate body plan was established shortly after the Cambrian Explosion.
- Karma Nanglu
- , Rudy Lerosey-Aubril
- & Javier Ortega-Hernández
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Atmospheric CO2 forcing on Mediterranean biomes during the past 500 kyrs
A 500 kyr long record of vegetation change from SE Europe demonstrates that forest resilience is lost when precipitation decreases below a threshold limit, and highlights the vulnerability of Mediterranean forests to near-future climate change
- Andreas Koutsodendris
- , Vasilis Dakos
- & Jörg Pross
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Marine ecosystem shifts with deglacial sea-ice loss inferred from ancient DNA shotgun sequencing
Ecosystem responses to prehistoric sea-ice loss are poorly known. Using marine sedimentary ancient DNA form the Bering Sea covering the last ~20,000 years, this study reveals a transition from a sea ice-adapted ecosystem, characterized by diatoms, copepods and codfish, to an ice-free Holocene with cyanobacteria, salmon and herring.
- Heike H. Zimmermann
- , Kathleen R. Stoof-Leichsenring
- & Ulrike Herzschuh
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Multiple drivers and lineage-specific insect extinctions during the Permo–Triassic
The impact of three extinction events during the Permo–Triassic interval on terrestrial invertebrates is unclear. Here, the authors find that key abiotic and biotic factors, including changes in floral assemblages, were correlated with changes in insect diversity through this interval.
- Corentin Jouault
- , André Nel
- & Fabien L. Condamine
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Ruminant inner ear shape records 35 million years of neutral evolution
External ecological interactions and intrinsic biological parameters affect evolutionary pathways and animal diversity. Here, the authors use ruminant inner ear morphology to investigate patterns of diversity through 33 million years, finding clade-dependent climate and paleogeographic trends.
- Bastien Mennecart
- , Laura Dziomber
- & Loïc Costeur
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Increases in reef size, habitat and metacommunity complexity associated with Cambrian radiation oxygenation pulses
During the Cambrian Radiation, oxygenation occurred in a series of short pulses. Here, the authors quantify episodic changes in reef size, extent of habitat and in metacommunity ecological complexity associated with these oxygenation pulses by examining archaeocyath sponges.
- Andrey Yu. Zhuravlev
- , Emily G. Mitchell
- & Amelia Penny
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Renewal of planktonic foraminifera diversity after the Cretaceous Paleogene mass extinction by benthic colonizers
Planktonic foraminifera are key to understanding paleoclimate and plankton evolution, but their origins are unclear. Here, the authors use a molecular clock to suggest that benthic foraminifera dispersed in plankton and renew planktonic foraminifera diversity after the Cretaceous Paleogene mass extinction.
- Raphaël Morard
- , Christiane Hassenrück
- & Michal Kucera
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High resolution ancient sedimentary DNA shows that alpine plant diversity is associated with human land use and climate change
Here, the authors use sedimentary DNA, pollen, fungal spores, chironomids, and microcharcoal from an alpine lake core to reconstruct vegetation across 12,000 years. They find that vegetation responded to climate in the early Holocene, followed by a shift to human activity from 6000 years onward corresponding with an increase in deforestation and agropastoralism.
- Sandra Garcés-Pastor
- , Eric Coissac
- & Inger Greve Alsos
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Relative tree cover does not indicate a lagged Holocene forest response to monsoon rainfall
- Ying Cheng
- , Yue Han
- & Hongyan Liu
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessReply To: Relative tree cover does not indicate a lagged Holocene forest response to monsoon rainfall
- Jun Cheng
- , Haibin Wu
- & Zhengyu Liu
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Article
| Open Access
Independent origin of large labyrinth size in turtles
The size and shape of the inner ear, or bony labyrinth, is thought to be related to ecological adaptations in vertebrates. Here, the authors examine this relationship in turtles across 230 million years of evolution, unexpectedly finding large labyrinth size and no association with ecology.
- Serjoscha W. Evers
- , Walter G. Joyce
- & Roger B. J. Benson
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| Open Access
Ancient marine sediment DNA reveals diatom transition in Antarctica
Sedimentary ancient DNA can indicate ecosystem-wide changes. Here, the authors show association between warm phases and high diatom abundance in the Antarctic Scotia Sea, in addition to presenting ancient eukaryote sedimentary DNA spanning the last approximately 1 million years.
- Linda Armbrecht
- , Michael E. Weber
- & Xufeng Zheng
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Changes in limiting factors for forager population dynamics in Europe across the last glacial-interglacial transition
Here, the authors use climate and resource availability, to statistically model the limiting factors in the dynamics of hunter-gatherer population densities in Europe between 21,000 and 8,000 years ago. They find that limiting factors varied spatiotemporally and the effects of these may be visible in the archaeological record.
- Alejandro Ordonez
- & Felix Riede
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The Holocene temperature conundrum answered by mollusk records from East Asia
Scientists have been puzzled by the disparity between climate simulations of the past 12,000 years and geological records. Dong et al. reconstructed past annual and seasonal temperatures from land snail records to examine the potential seasonal bias.
- Yajie Dong
- , Naiqin Wu
- & Houyuan Lu
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Recent climate change has driven divergent hydrological shifts in high-latitude peatlands
A recent synthesis study found 54% of the high-latitude peatlands have been drying and 32% have been wetting over the past centuries, illustrating their complex ecohydrological dynamics and highly uncertain responses to a warming climate.
- Hui Zhang
- , Minna Väliranta
- & Yan Zhao
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Accurate population proxies do not exist between 11.7 and 15 ka in North America
- Spencer R. Pelton
- , Madeline E. Mackie
- & Todd A. Surovell
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Reply to: Accurate population proxies do not exist between 11.7 and 15 ka in North America
- Mathew Stewart
- , W. Christopher Carleton
- & Huw S. Groucutt
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Article
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Late quaternary biotic homogenization of North American mammalian faunas
Biotic homogenization, which is increased similarity in the composition of species among communities, is rising due to human activities. Using North American mammal fossil records from the past 30,000 years, this study shows that this phenomenon is ancient, beginning between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago with the extinction of the mammal megafauna.
- Danielle Fraser
- , Amelia Villaseñor
- & S. Kathleen Lyons
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Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet
Spines are an important physical defense for many plant species. Here, the authors describe seven different spine morphologies from the Eocene of central Tibet associated with regional aridification and expansion of herbivorous mammals.
- Xinwen Zhang
- , Uriel Gélin
- & Tao Su
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Steller’s sea cow uncertain history illustrates importance of ecological context when interpreting demographic histories from genomes
- Alberto A. Campos
- , Cameron D. Bullen
- & Kai M. A. Chan
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Reply to: Evidence confirms an anthropic origin of Amazonian Dark Earths
- Lucas C. R. Silva
- , Rodrigo Studart Corrêa
- & Roberto Ventura Santos
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Article
| Open Access
Trophic position of Otodus megalodon and great white sharks through time revealed by zinc isotopes
Here the authors demonstrate the use of zinc isotopes (δ66Zn) to geochemically assess trophic levels in extant and extinct sharks. They show that the Neogene megatooth shark (Otodus megalodon) and the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) occupied a similar trophic level.
- Jeremy McCormack
- , Michael L. Griffiths
- & Thomas Tütken
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Reply to “Marine abundance and its prehistoric past in the Baltic”
- J. P. Lewis
- , D. B. Ryves
- & S. Juggins
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Article
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Fast-growing species shape the evolution of reef corals
The effect of biotic interactions among reef corals on macroevolutionary patterns is unclear. Here, the authors study the rich coral fossil record, finding that reef coral diversity experienced potentially biotic interaction-driven evolutionary rate changes, and that Staghorn corals affected fossil diversity trajectories of other coral groups.
- Alexandre C. Siqueira
- , Wolfgang Kiessling
- & David R. Bellwood
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Congruent evolutionary responses of European steppe biota to late Quaternary climate change
Quaternary climatic oscillations had a large impact on European biogeography. Using genomic data, machine learning, and approximate Bayesian computation, this study outlines a general scenario in which Quaternary climatic oscillations shaped the evolution of European steppe biota in a congruent way, emphasizing the role of climate underlying patterns of genetic variance at the biome level.
- Philipp Kirschner
- , Manolo F. Perez
- & Peter Schönswetter
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The Chengjiang Biota inhabited a deltaic environment
The Chengjiang Biota is the earliest most diverse animal community from the Cambrian Explosion (~518 million years ago). This biota is shown to have colonized a delta, highlighting the importance of this shallow environment in recording early snapshots of life on Earth.
- Farid Saleh
- , Changshi Qi
- & Xiaoya Ma
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Thresholds of temperature change for mass extinctions
The linkage between temperature change and extinction rates in the fossil record is well-known qualitatively but little explored quantitatively. Here the authors investigate the relationship of marine animal extinctions with rate and magnitude of temperature change across the last 450 million years, and identify thresholds in climate change linked to mass extinctions.
- Haijun Song
- , David B. Kemp
- & Xu Dai
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Dinosaur biodiversity declined well before the asteroid impact, influenced by ecological and environmental pressures
Dinosaurs are thought to have been driven extinct by an asteroid impact 66 million years ago. Here, Condamine et al. show that six major dinosaur families were already in decline in the preceding 10 million years, possibly due to global cooling and competition among herbivores.
- Fabien L. Condamine
- , Guillaume Guinot
- & Philip J. Currie
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| Open Access
The Great Oxygenation Event as a consequence of ecological dynamics modulated by planetary change
The Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) 2.4 billion years ago is believed to have been critical for the evolution of complex life. Here, Olejarz et al. propose a model suggesting that competition between major bacterial groups could have triggered the GOE in a feedback loop with geophysical processes.
- Jason Olejarz
- , Yoh Iwasa
- & Martin A. Nowak
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Approximate Bayesian Computation of radiocarbon and paleoenvironmental record shows population resilience on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
Summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates can be used to estimate past demography, but methods to test for associations with environmental change are lacking. Here, DiNapoli et al. propose an approach using Approximate Bayesian Computation and illustrate it in a case study of Rapa Nui.
- Robert J. DiNapoli
- , Enrico R. Crema
- & Terry L. Hunt
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Sedimentary ancient DNA reveals a threat of warming-induced alpine habitat loss to Tibetan Plateau plant diversity
Long-term sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) records can help inform how biodiversity will likely respond to future climate change. Here, Liu et al. reconstruct plant diversity at the margin of the Tibetan Plateau over the last ~18,000 years using sedaDNA and use this record to predict future diversity change.
- Sisi Liu
- , Stefan Kruse
- & Ulrike Herzschuh
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Niche partitioning shaped herbivore macroevolution through the early Mesozoic
Terrestrial ecosystems underwent major restructuring through the early Mesozoic, culminating in dinosaur-dominated faunas. Here Singh et al. use jaw morphology to classify tetrapod herbivores into distinct feeding groups and show that their success was shaped by environmental changes and competitive constraints.
- Suresh A. Singh
- , Armin Elsler
- & Michael J. Benton
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Late Pleistocene South American megafaunal extinctions associated with rise of Fishtail points and human population
Human arrival in South America predated the extinction of regional megafauna by a substantial margin, which has suggested a different cause for the extinctions. However, here, the authors show that megafaunal extinctions do correspond to the spread of hunting tools and human population shifts.
- Luciano Prates
- & S. Ivan Perez
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Article
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Climate change, not human population growth, correlates with Late Quaternary megafauna declines in North America
There are a number of competing explanations for the late Pleistocene extinction of many North American megafauna species. Here, the authors apply a Bayesian regression approach that finds greater concordance between megafaunal declines and climate change than with human population growth.
- Mathew Stewart
- , W. Christopher Carleton
- & Huw S. Groucutt
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Article
| Open Access
Cryptic terrestrial fungus-like fossils of the early Ediacaran Period
Fungi may have evolved up to 2.4 billion years ago, but it is unclear when they first colonized land. Here Gan and colleagues report filamentous Ediacaran microfossils from South China that may represent early terrestrial fungi.
- Tian Gan
- , Taiyi Luo
- & Shuhai Xiao
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| Open Access
Ancient proteins provide evidence of dairy consumption in eastern Africa
Consuming the milk of other species is a unique adaptation of Homo sapiens. Here, the authors carry out proteomic analysis of dental calculus of 41 ancient individuals from Sudan and Kenya, indicating milk consumption occurred as soon as herding spread into eastern Africa.
- Madeleine Bleasdale
- , Kristine K. Richter
- & Nicole Boivin
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| Open Access
Earliest Olduvai hominins exploited unstable environments ~ 2 million years ago
Oldupai Gorge, Tanzania is a key site for understanding early human evolution. Here, the authors report a multiproxy dataset from the Western basin of Oldupai Gorge dating to 2 million years ago, enabling the in situ comparison of lithic assemblages, paleoenvironments and hominin behavioral adaptability.
- Julio Mercader
- , Pam Akuku
- & Michael Petraglia
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Article
| Open Access
Enhanced fish production during a period of extreme global warmth
Fish production is predicted to decrease with anthropogenic global warming. Here the authors analyse fish fossil assemblages from 62–46 My old deep-sea sediments and instead find a positive correlation between fish production and ocean temperature over geological timescales, which a data-constrained model explains in terms of trophic transfer efficiency and primary production.
- Gregory L. Britten
- & Elizabeth C. Sibert
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| Open Access
Dietary diversity and evolution of the earliest flying vertebrates revealed by dental microwear texture analysis
Microwear patterns on teeth can be used to infer diet as different foods leave different marks. Here, Bestwick and colleagues analyse microwear from the teeth of pterosaurs—extinct flying reptiles colloquially known as “pterodactyls”—to reconstruct their dietary diversity and evolution.
- Jordan Bestwick
- , David M. Unwin
- & Mark A. Purnell
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Marine plankton show threshold extinction response to Neogene climate change
High-latitude records show large diversity losses of marine plankton, such as radiolarians, with historical climate change. Here, Trubovitz et al. present a low-latitude record spanning the last 10 million years, finding that many high-latitude radiolarians did not shift equatorward but instead went extinct.
- Sarah Trubovitz
- , David Lazarus
- & Paula J. Noble
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| Open Access
American mastodon mitochondrial genomes suggest multiple dispersal events in response to Pleistocene climate oscillations
Pleistocene population dynamics can inform the consequences of current climate change. This phylogeography of 35 complete American mastodon mitochondrial genomes suggests distinct lineages in this species repeatedly expanded northwards and then went locally extinct in response to glacial cycles.
- Emil Karpinski
- , Dirk Hackenberger
- & Hendrik N. Poinar
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Article
| Open Access
Calcium isotopic ecology of Turkana Basin hominins
Non-traditional stable isotopes, such as of calcium, have potential to expand our understanding of ancient diets. Here, Martin et al. use stable calcium isotopes recovered from fossil tooth enamel to compare the dietary ecology of hominins and other primates in the Turkana Basin 2-4 million years ago.
- Jeremy E. Martin
- , Théo Tacail
- & Vincent Balter
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| Open Access
An encrusting kleptoparasite-host interaction from the early Cambrian
Parasitic interactions are difficult to document in the fossil record. Here, Zhang et al. analyze a large population of a Cambrian brachiopod and show it was frequently encrusted by tubes aligned to its feeding currents and that encrustation was associated with reduced biomass, suggesting a fitness cost.
- Zhifei Zhang
- , Luke C. Strotz
- & Glenn A. Brock
The angiosperm radiation played a dual role in the diversification of insects and insect pollinators