Selectivity of Extinction - Megafaunal Extinctions in the Pleistocene
For the next two weeks (well, three if you count spring break) we'll be discussing the selectivity of extinction. Since Raup spends the first half of this chapter discussing the Pleistocene megafaunal extinction, I thought we'd spend our first week on this topic as well. After a search of the literature I quickly discovered that we could spend a whole year on just this subject, and it was very difficult to narrow down which articles to discuss. We'll be reading:
Barnosky, Anthony D. et al. 2004. Assessing the causes of late Pleistocene extinctions on the continents. Science 306: 70-75.
Lyons, S. Kathleen et al. 2004. Of mice, mastadons, and men: human-mediated extinctions on four continents. Evolutionary Ecology Research 6: 339-358.
If you'd like some additional background, the wikipedia page is pretty good.
Questions to think on:
1. What do you think caused the Pleistocene extinction event? (Note: We may just go around the room and answer this one, or take a silent vote.)
2. If faced with a proponent of the overkill hypothesis, how would you challenge his/her ideas? What about a proponent of the climate change hypothesis?
3. Raup discusses a couple of other examples of size-biased extinction in the fossil record. How do these compare to the Pleistocene extinction event? Are these other extinctions more or less selective based on size?
4. What are some reasons why large bodied species would be more likely to go extinct? Less likely?
5. Are large bodied species more likely to be endangered today? Why?
6. How might this or other extinction events have been selective for characteristics other than body size?
By the end of the class period, we will have solved the question of the Pleistocene extinction! Right?
Barnosky, Anthony D. et al. 2004. Assessing the causes of late Pleistocene extinctions on the continents. Science 306: 70-75.
Lyons, S. Kathleen et al. 2004. Of mice, mastadons, and men: human-mediated extinctions on four continents. Evolutionary Ecology Research 6: 339-358.
If you'd like some additional background, the wikipedia page is pretty good.
Questions to think on:
1. What do you think caused the Pleistocene extinction event? (Note: We may just go around the room and answer this one, or take a silent vote.)
2. If faced with a proponent of the overkill hypothesis, how would you challenge his/her ideas? What about a proponent of the climate change hypothesis?
3. Raup discusses a couple of other examples of size-biased extinction in the fossil record. How do these compare to the Pleistocene extinction event? Are these other extinctions more or less selective based on size?
4. What are some reasons why large bodied species would be more likely to go extinct? Less likely?
5. Are large bodied species more likely to be endangered today? Why?
6. How might this or other extinction events have been selective for characteristics other than body size?
By the end of the class period, we will have solved the question of the Pleistocene extinction! Right?
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