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. 2020 Jun 2;11(1):2770.
doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16502-3.

Rapid range shifts and megafaunal extinctions associated with late Pleistocene climate change

Frederik V Seersholm  1 , Daniel J Werndly  2 , Alicia Grealy  2   3 , Taryn Johnson  4 , Erin M Keenan Early  5 , Ernest L Lundelius Jr  6 , Barbara Winsborough  7   8 , Grayal Earle Farr  9 , Rickard Toomey  10 , Anders J Hansen  11 , Beth Shapiro  12   13 , Michael R Waters  14 , Gregory McDonald  15 , Anna Linderholm  4 , Thomas W Stafford Jr  16 , Michael Bunce  17
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Laboratory, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia. frederikseersholm@gmail.com.
  • 2 Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Laboratory, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia.
  • 3 Division of Ecology and Evolution, Research School of Biology, ANU College of Science The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2600, Australia.
  • 4 Bioarchaeology and Genomics Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA.
  • 5 Department of Geosciences, Jackson School of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
  • 6 Department of Geosciences, Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory, Jackson School of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
  • 7 Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
  • 8 Winsborough Consulting, Leander, TX, 78641, USA.
  • 9 Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 32310, USA.
  • 10 Mammoth Cave National Park, PO Box 7, Mammoth Cave, KY, 42259, USA.
  • 11 Centre for GeoGenetics, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, DK-1350, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • 12 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA.
  • 13 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA.
  • 14 Center for the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-4352, USA.
  • 15 Bureau of Land Management, Utah State Office, 440 West 200 South, Salt Lake City, UT, 84101-1345, USA.
  • 16 Stafford Research LLC, Lafayette, CO, 80026-1845, USA.
  • 17 Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Laboratory, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia. michael.bunce@curtin.edu.au.

Rapid range shifts and megafaunal extinctions associated with late Pleistocene climate change

Frederik V Seersholm et al. Nat Commun. .
. 2020 Jun 2;11(1):2770.
doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16502-3.

Authors

Frederik V Seersholm  1 , Daniel J Werndly  2 , Alicia Grealy  2   3 , Taryn Johnson  4 , Erin M Keenan Early  5 , Ernest L Lundelius Jr  6 , Barbara Winsborough  7   8 , Grayal Earle Farr  9 , Rickard Toomey  10 , Anders J Hansen  11 , Beth Shapiro  12   13 , Michael R Waters  14 , Gregory McDonald  15 , Anna Linderholm  4 , Thomas W Stafford Jr  16 , Michael Bunce  17

Affiliations

  • 1 Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Laboratory, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia. frederikseersholm@gmail.com.
  • 2 Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Laboratory, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia.
  • 3 Division of Ecology and Evolution, Research School of Biology, ANU College of Science The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2600, Australia.
  • 4 Bioarchaeology and Genomics Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA.
  • 5 Department of Geosciences, Jackson School of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
  • 6 Department of Geosciences, Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory, Jackson School of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
  • 7 Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
  • 8 Winsborough Consulting, Leander, TX, 78641, USA.
  • 9 Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 32310, USA.
  • 10 Mammoth Cave National Park, PO Box 7, Mammoth Cave, KY, 42259, USA.
  • 11 Centre for GeoGenetics, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, DK-1350, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • 12 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA.
  • 13 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA.
  • 14 Center for the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-4352, USA.
  • 15 Bureau of Land Management, Utah State Office, 440 West 200 South, Salt Lake City, UT, 84101-1345, USA.
  • 16 Stafford Research LLC, Lafayette, CO, 80026-1845, USA.
  • 17 Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Laboratory, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia. michael.bunce@curtin.edu.au.

Abstract

Large-scale changes in global climate at the end of the Pleistocene significantly impacted ecosystems across North America. However, the pace and scale of biotic turnover in response to both the Younger Dryas cold period and subsequent Holocene rapid warming have been challenging to assess because of the scarcity of well dated fossil and pollen records that covers this period. Here we present an ancient DNA record from Hall's Cave, Texas, that documents 100 vertebrate and 45 plant taxa from bulk fossils and sediment. We show that local plant and animal diversity dropped markedly during Younger Dryas cooling, but while plant diversity recovered in the early Holocene, animal diversity did not. Instead, five extant and nine extinct large bodied animals disappeared from the region at the end of the Pleistocene. Our findings suggest that climate change affected the local ecosystem in Texas over the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, but climate change on its own may not explain the disappearance of the megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1

Fig. 1. Sampling location and stratigraphy.

a …

Fig. 1. Sampling location and stratigraphy.

a Location of Hall’s Cave in North America, with…
Fig. 1. Sampling location and stratigraphy.
a Location of Hall’s Cave in North America, with the continental ice sheets and mountain glaciers shown at 18,000 and 9000 cal BP. b Left panel, sample ages at Hall’s Cave for bulk-bone samples (circles) and sediment samples (triangles) based on calibrated ages (ka cal BP). Middle panel, ambient temperature over Greenland based on δ18O values, dated by counting annual accumulation layers (years before Y2k; Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2—GISP2). Right panel, time period sectioning.
Fig. 2

Fig. 2. Overall vertebrate diversity derived from…

Fig. 2. Overall vertebrate diversity derived from bulk-bone metabarcoding (BBM).

Dendrogram of genera detected by…

Fig. 2. Overall vertebrate diversity derived from bulk-bone metabarcoding (BBM).
Dendrogram of genera detected by BBM at Hall’s Cave (Texas), with silhouettes illustrative of some of the detected taxa. Bar heights represent the number of bulk-bone layers (n = 36) in which each genus was detected. See Supplementary Tables 6–8 for a complete list of taxa detected. Daggers highlight extinct species.
Fig. 3

Fig. 3. Vertebrate diversity through time tracked…

Fig. 3. Vertebrate diversity through time tracked via bulk-bone metabarcoding (BBM).

a The lower two…
Fig. 3. Vertebrate diversity through time tracked via bulk-bone metabarcoding (BBM).
a The lower two panels represent the number of different extinct and extant species of large herbivores (>30 kg) or carnivores, respectively, that were identified in each layer. The upper two panels indicate population replacement of selected indicator species. b Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) plot based on BBM results from samples excavated for this study (Supplementary Table 1). c Number of taxa detected per layer for samples excavated for this study illustrated with boxplots (centre line: median. Box limits: upper and lower quartiles. Whiskers extend to the extremes of the data, no data points were excluded). A total of 30 biologically independent samples from four time periods were compared: LGM (n = 11), Bølling–Allerød (n = 5), YD (n = 3) and Early Holocene (n = 11). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
Fig. 4

Fig. 4. Plant diversity through time.

Record…

Fig. 4. Plant diversity through time.

Record is based on sed aDNA data of two…

Fig. 4. Plant diversity through time.
Record is based on sedaDNA data of two short chloroplast assays (trnL-gh and rbcL). a Detection of select indicator species through time. It includes data from sequences A and B sorted by age (Supplementary Table 4). b Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) plot based on presence/absence data of all taxa detected by sedaDNA. c Number of taxa detected per layer for different time periods illustrated with boxplots (centre line: median. Box limits: upper and lower quartiles. Whiskers extend to the extremes of the data, no data points were excluded). A total of 32 biologically independent samples from three time periods were compared: Bølling–Allerød (n = 15), YD (n = 8) and Early Holocene (n = 9). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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