12 April 2017 address at Grand Valley State University, v. 3 of talk with similar name, aimed at general public.

1. Models of extinction from the Miocene to the last
40 years
Liliana M. Dávalos
Grand Valley State University
12 April 2017
!

2. Most important
scientific discovery of
the 18th century
Lightning as electricity? c. 1751

3. Conservation of mass? c. 1789

4. Georges Cuvier

6. Mass extinction! Sepkoski 1984 Paleobiology

7. 65 million years ago
looks fine
© Karen Carr/Australian Museum

8. Until you look closely © National Geographic

9. The best of times Sepkoski 1984 Paleobiology

10. The worst of times Ceballos et al. 2015 Sci. Adv.

11. John James Audubon

12. When did it start?
FAO 2012 State of the World’s Forests
NOAA
International Fertilizer
Industry Association

13. Chauvet, 35K years ago © Stephen Alvarez/National Geographic

14. Here in the New World
14.5K years ago
© Velizar Simeonovski/Field Museum
Halligan et al. 2016 Sci. Adv.

15. But 12.5K years ago
© Ron Blakey/Northern Arizona University © Illinois State Museum

16. The mystery of the
giants
• End glaciation ~11.7K
years ago
• Mastodon, ground
sloths, extinct around
this time
• Human hunting before
that date
• What or who killed
these giants?
© PBS

17. Mammals of the Caribbean
© Yomangani/Creative Commons © Eladio Fernandez
© Jon Flanders

18. More mammals of the Caribbean!
© Ghedoghedo
Rosenberger et al. 2010 Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B © Adrian Tejedor

19. Enter the bats of the
Caribbean
Dominican Republic 2014

20. Why did so many bats
go extinct?
Deglaciation!
© Adrian Tejedor

21. Islands of the Caribbean:
The West Indies
Dávalos,& Turvey 2012 Bones,
Clones, and Biomes

22. Trouble is we didn’t have
the dates
Soto-Centeno & Steadman 2015 Sci. Rep.

23. A plan of action
• Hundreds of mammals
• Dozens of islands
• When did mammals
go extinct?
• When did humans
arrive?
©Theodor de Bry/National Library of Medicine

24. • Cooke, Dávalos et al. 2018 Annu. Rev.
Ecol. Evol. Syst.

25. Timing is everything Cooke, Dávalos et al. 2018 Annu. Rev.
Ecol. Evol. Syst.

26. Cooke, Dávalos et al. 2018 Annu. Rev.
Ecol. Evol. Syst.

27. Statistical models
• Fauna and humans
overlap
• Extinction by
humans possible
• No fauna and human
overlap
• Extinction not by
humans

28. How did the mammals
of the Caribbean go
extinct?
One size does not fit all

29. Larger mammals probably hunted early on
© Ghedoghedo Wilson 1989 J Field Archaeol.

30. Many extinction events recorded after arrival of Old
World invasive competitors/predators
Turvey et al. 2012 Mamm. Biol.

31. © Adrian Tejedor ©Pierpont Morgan Library

32. Survivors are special Cooke, Dávalos et al. 2017 Annu. Rev.
Ecol. Evol. Syst.

33. On extinction
• No single cause
• Before humans
• Deglaciation
• Area loss
• After humans
• Hunting
• Ecosystem change
• Invasive species
Photo by Jon Flanders

34. We are here Ceballos et al. 2015 Sci. Adv.

35. Biodiversity is
concentrated
Fjeldså, Álvarez et al. 2005 Ambio

36. Davalos et al. 2011 Env. Sci. Tech.
Forest loss from illegal
markets

37. Answering a question
for the UN
The Special Session of 2016

38. A matter of time
• Were illegal markets
the start of
deforestation?
• If not, how did
deforestation begin?
Etter et al. 2008 Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr.

39. Opening the frontier Denevan 1966 Geogr. Rev.

40. Roads and colonization
projects
Brücher 1977 Geogr. Z.
Schuurman 1978 Tijdschr. Econ. Soc. Ge.

41. Brazil
Bolivia
Peru
Colombia
Ecuador
Coca cultivation
Government-sponsored
before 1979
1990/1992
Projects
Coca cultivation
Percent forest
a b
Location of projects relates
to carbon emissions
Harris et al. 2012 Science

42. Brazil
Bolivia
Peru
Colombia
Ecuador
Coca cultivation
Government-sponsored
before 1979
1990/1992
Projects
Coca cultivation
High
Low
2014
Percent forest P
a b
A remarkable spatial
pattern
Davalos et al. 2016 Bioscience

43. High
Low
Probability of coca
c
Time to model
• Measure influence of
the development
projects
• If projects set the
stage for illicit crops
• Distance from
projects should
decrease probability
of crops
Davalos et al. 2016 Bioscience

44. The model helps us understand recent history
Davalos et al. 2016 Bioscience
© UNODC

45. On forest loss
• Incomplete development
has consequences
• Roads transform the
landscape
• Roads are needed
anyhow
• Protect forests
• Parks, easements

46. A simple model based
on fire
Armenteras… Dávalos 2017 Ecol. Appl.

47. Thanks!