Outlines and Highlights for American Megafaunal Extinctions at the End of the Pleistocene by Gary Haynes, Isbn PDF Download

Author: Cram101 Textbook Reviews
Publisher: Academic Internet Pub Incorporated
ISBN: 9781614902584
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 90

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Book Description
Never HIGHLIGHT a Book Again! Virtually all of the testable terms, concepts, persons, places, and events from the textbook are included. Cram101 Just the FACTS101 studyguides give all of the outlines, highlights, notes, and quizzes for your textbook with optional online comprehensive practice tests. Only Cram101 is Textbook Specific. Accompanys: 9781402087929 .

Author: Cram101 Textbook Reviews
Publisher: Cram101
ISBN: 9781490226743
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
Never HIGHLIGHT a Book Again Virtually all testable terms, concepts, persons, places, and events are included. Cram101 Textbook Outlines gives all of the outlines, highlights, notes for your textbook with optional online practice tests. Only Cram101 Outlines are Textbook Specific. Cram101 is NOT the Textbook. Accompanys: 9780521673761

Author: Gary Haynes
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402087934
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The volume contains summaries of facts, theories, and unsolved problems pertaining to the unexplained extinction of dozens of genera of mostly large terrestrial mammals, which occurred ca. 13,000 calendar years ago in North America and about 1,000 years later in South America. Another equally mysterious wave of extinctions affected large Caribbean islands around 5,000 years ago. The coupling of these extinctions with the earliest appearance of human beings has led to the suggestion that foraging humans are to blame, although major climatic shifts were also taking place in the Americas during some of the extinctions. The last published volume with similar (but not identical) themes -- Extinctions in Near Time -- appeared in 1999; since then a great deal of innovative, exciting new research has been done but has not yet been compiled and summarized. Different chapters in this volume provide in-depth resumés of the chronology of the extinctions in North and South America, the possible insights into animal ecology provided by studies of stable isotopes and anatomical/physiological characteristics such as growth increments in mammoth and mastodont tusks, the clues from taphonomic research about large-mammal biology, the applications of dating methods to the extinctions debate, and archeological controversies concerning human hunting of large mammals.

Author: Ross D E MacPhee
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393249301
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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The fascinating lives and puzzling demise of some of the largest animals on earth. Until a few thousand years ago, creatures that could have been from a sci-fi thriller—including gorilla-sized lemurs, 500-pound birds, and crocodiles that weighed a ton or more—roamed the earth. These great beasts, or “megafauna,” lived on every habitable continent and on many islands. With a handful of exceptions, all are now gone. What caused the disappearance of these prehistoric behemoths? No one event can be pinpointed as a specific cause, but several factors may have played a role. Paleomammalogist Ross D. E. MacPhee explores them all, examining the leading extinction theories, weighing the evidence, and presenting his own conclusions. He shows how theories of human overhunting and catastrophic climate change fail to account for critical features of these extinctions, and how new thinking is needed to elucidate these mysterious losses. Along the way, we learn how time is determined in earth history; how DNA is used to explain the genomics and phylogenetic history of megafauna—and how synthetic biology and genetic engineering may be able to reintroduce these giants of the past. Until then, gorgeous four-color illustrations by Peter Schouten re-create these megabeasts here in vivid detail.

Author: Paul S. Martin
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816547440
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 903

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Book Description
"What caused the extinction of so many animals at or near the end of the Pleistocene? Was it overkill by human hunters, the result of a major climatic change or was it just a part of some massive evolutionary turnover? Questions such as these have plagued scientists for over one hundred years and are still being heatedly debated today. Quaternary Extinctions presents the latest and most comprehensive examination of these questions." —Geological Magazine "May be regarded as a kind of standard encyclopedia for Pleistocene vertebrate paleontology for years to come." —American Scientist "Should be read by paleobiologists, biologists, wildlife managers, ecologists, archeologists, and anyone concerned about the ongoing extinction of plants and animals." —Science "Uncommonly readable and varied for watchers of paleontology and the rise of humankind." —Scientific American "Represents a quantum leap in our knowledge of Pleistocene and Holocene palaeobiology. . . . Many volumes on our bookshelves are destined to gather dust rather than attention. But not this one." —Nature "Two strong impressions prevail when first looking into this epic compendium. One is the judicious balance of views that range over the whole continuum between monocausal, cultural, or environmental explanations. The second is that both the data base and theoretical sophistication of the protagonists in the debate have improved by a quantum leap since 1967." —American Anthropologist

Author: Ross D.E. MacPhee
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1475752024
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
"Near time" -an interval that spans the last 100,000 years or so of earth history-qualifies as a remarkable period for many reasons. From an anthropocentric point of view, the out standing feature of near time is the fact that the evolution, cultural diversification, and glob al spread of Homo sapiens have all occurred within it. From a wider biological perspective, however, the hallmark of near time is better conceived of as being one of enduring, repeat ed loss. The point is important. Despite the sense of uniqueness implicit in phrases like "the biodiversity crisis," meant to convey the notion that the present bout of extinctions is by far the worst endured in recent times, substantial losses have occurred throughout near time. In the majority of cases, these losses occurred when, and only when, people began to ex pand across areas that had never before experienced their presence. Although the explana tion for these correlations in time and space may seem obvious, it is one thing to rhetori cally observe that there is a connection between humans and recent extinctions, and quite another to demonstrate it scientifically. How should this be done? Traditionally, the study of past extinctions has fallen largely to researchers steeped in such disciplines as paleontology, systematics, and paleoecology. The evaluation of future losses, by contrast, has lain almost exclusively within the domain of conservation biolo gists. Now, more than ever, there is opportunity for overlap and sharing of information.

Author: Paul S. Martin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520941106
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
As recently as 11,000 years ago—"near time" to geologists—mammoths, mastodons, gomphotheres, ground sloths, giant armadillos, native camels and horses, the dire wolf, and many other large mammals roamed North America. In what has become one of science's greatest riddles, these large animals vanished in North and South America around the time humans arrived at the end of the last great ice age. Part paleontological adventure and part memoir, Twilight of the Mammoths presents in detail internationally renowned paleoecologist Paul Martin's widely discussed and debated "overkill" hypothesis to explain these mysterious megafauna extinctions. Taking us from Rampart Cave in the Grand Canyon, where he finds himself "chest deep in sloth dung," to other important fossil sites in Arizona and Chile, Martin's engaging book, written for a wide audience, uncovers our rich evolutionary legacy and shows why he has come to believe that the earliest Americans literally hunted these animals to death. As he discusses the discoveries that brought him to this hypothesis, Martin relates many colorful stories and gives a rich overview of the field of paleontology as well as his own fascinating career. He explores the ramifications of the overkill hypothesis for similar extinctions worldwide and examines other explanations for the extinctions, including climate change. Martin's visionary thinking about our missing megafauna offers inspiration and a challenge for today's conservation efforts as he speculates on what we might do to remedy this situation—both in our thinking about what is "natural" and in the natural world itself.

Author: Jim I. Mead
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : America
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
10 papers using new conceptual frameworks to interpret late Quaternary cultural and environmental remains. Chapters are composed largely of the proceedings of a symposium held at the Society for American Archaeology meetings in 1982.

Author: Sharon Levy
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190267766
Category : Extinction
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Until about 13,000 years ago, Europe and North America were home to a menagerie of massive mammals. Mammoths, camels, and lions walked the ground that has become our cities and streets. Then, just as the first humans reached the Americas, these Ice Age giants vanished forever. In this book the author digs through the evidence surrounding Pleistocene large animal ('megafauna') extinction events worldwide, showing that understanding this history - and our part in it - is crucial for protecting the elephants, polar bears, and other great creatures at risk today.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
The late-glacial/early Holocene transition was a period of widespread environmental upheaval, including the arrival of the first humans, the extinction of 34 genera of megafauna, and the individualistic response of plant ranges and abundances to warming temperatures and ice sheet retreat. North American pollen records from this interval are characterized by a high minimum dissimilarity from present, representing plant associations with no modern analog. I tested the hypothesis that megafaunal herbivory played a role in the formation of late-glacial no-analog plant associations, using spores from the dung fungus Sporormiella as a lake sediment proxy for the presence of megaherbivores. For this dissertation, I first review research on modern plant-megaherbivore interactions, outlining testable hypotheses about the impacts of the end-Pleistocene extinctions on vegetation. Next, I present a new, multi-proxy record (including fossil pollen, charcoal, and Sporormiella) from Silver Lake, OH, a classic no-analog pollen site. The Silver Lake paleorecord supports the hypothesis that a combination of top-down forcings, including novel climates and megaherbivory release, contributed to the formation of the no-analog plant associations and enhanced fire regimes following the local decline of megaherbivores at ca. 13,900 BP. Third, I conducted a modern process analysis of Sporormiella at Konza Prairie that links Sporormiella abundances to bison presence and grazing intensity (kg/m2/year), and indicates a very local source area (