Biodiversity is essential to human well-being, but people have been reducing biodiversity
throughout human history. Loss of species and degradation of ecosystems are likely to …

Palaeontologists characterize mass extinctions as times when the Earth loses more than
three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval, as has happened only five times …

Since the late Pleistocene, large-bodied mammals have been extirpated from much of Earth.
Although all habitable continents once harbored giant mammals, the few remaining species …

When did humans colonize the Americas? From where did they come and what routes did
they take? These questions have gripped scientists for decades, but until recently answers …

As the largest frugivores on Earth, elephants have unique ecological properties. Found in
deserts, savannahs, and forests, they are the last remnants of a diverse lineage. Among the …

Debate around the ecologically noble savage represents two markedly different research
threads. The first addresses the issue of conservation among native peoples and narrowly …

Species distribution modeling (SDM: statistical and/or mechanistic approaches to the
assessment of range determinants and prediction of species occurrence) offers new …

Large vertebrates are strong interactors in food webs, yet they were lost from most
ecosystems after the dispersal of modern humans from Africa and Eurasia. We call for …

In this paper, we expand upon a prior study [Surovell, TA, Brantingham, PJ, 2007. A note on
the use of temporal frequency distributions in studies of prehistoric demography. Journal of …

Large herbivorous vertebrates have strong interactions with vegetation, affecting the
structure, composition and dynamics of plant communities in many ways. Living large …