Mechanistic modeling of environmental drivers of woolly mammoth carrying capacity declines on St. Paul Island
On St. Paul Island, a remnant of the Bering Land Bridge, woolly mammoths persisted until 5,600 yr BP with no known predators or competitors, providing a natural system for studying hypothesized environmental drivers of extinction. These include overheating due to rising temperatures, starvation, and...
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Language: | English |
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Ecological Society of America
2018
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Online Access: | https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7e031d50-021c-4ab1-a674-25c6bfb45598 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2524 |
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ftulundlup:oai:lup.lub.lu.se:7e031d50-021c-4ab1-a674-25c6bfb45598 2024-05-19T07:38:18+00:00 Mechanistic modeling of environmental drivers of woolly mammoth carrying capacity declines on St. Paul Island Wang, Yue Porter, Warren Mathewson, Paul D. Miller, Paul A. Graham, Russell W. Williams, John W. 2018 https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7e031d50-021c-4ab1-a674-25c6bfb45598 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2524 eng eng Ecological Society of America https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7e031d50-021c-4ab1-a674-25c6bfb45598 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2524 pmid:30365160 scopus:85055581334 Ecology; 99(12), pp 2721-2730 (2018) ISSN: 0012-9658 Ecology Beringia carrying capacity dynamic vegetation model extinction Holocene island biogeography LPJ-GUESS mechanistic niche model megafauna Niche Mapper woolly mammoth contributiontojournal/article info:eu-repo/semantics/article text 2018 ftulundlup https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2524 2024-04-30T23:32:16Z On St. Paul Island, a remnant of the Bering Land Bridge, woolly mammoths persisted until 5,600 yr BP with no known predators or competitors, providing a natural system for studying hypothesized environmental drivers of extinction. These include overheating due to rising temperatures, starvation, and drought. Here, we test these hypotheses using Niche Mapper and LPJ-GUESS to mechanistically estimate mammoth metabolic rates and dietary and freshwater requirements and, from these, estimate variations in island carrying capacity on St. Paul for the last 17,000 yr. Population carrying capacity may have been several hundred individuals at the time of initial isolation from the mainland. Adult mammoths could have fasted for two to three months, indicating a necessary ability to access snow-buried forage. During the Holocene, vegetation net primary productivity increased, but shrinking island area overrode increased net primary productivity (NPP), lowering carrying capacity to ~100 individuals. NPP and freshwater availability alternated as critical limiting factors for this island population during the environmental changes of the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Only two or three individuals could have been sustained by the freshwater surplus in crater lakes (up to 18 individuals under the most optimistic parameter sensitivity experiments), suggesting that the St. Paul mammoth population was highly dependent on coastal freshwater sources. The simulations are consistent with the available proxy data, while highlighting the need to retrieve new paleohydrological proxy records from the coastal lagoons to test model predictions. More broadly, these findings reinforce the vulnerability of island megaherbivore populations to resource limitation and extinction. Article in Journal/Newspaper Bering Land Bridge Beringia Lund University Publications (LUP) Ecology 99 12 2721 2730 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Lund University Publications (LUP) |
op_collection_id |
ftulundlup |
language |
English |
topic |
Ecology Beringia carrying capacity dynamic vegetation model extinction Holocene island biogeography LPJ-GUESS mechanistic niche model megafauna Niche Mapper woolly mammoth |
spellingShingle |
Ecology Beringia carrying capacity dynamic vegetation model extinction Holocene island biogeography LPJ-GUESS mechanistic niche model megafauna Niche Mapper woolly mammoth Wang, Yue Porter, Warren Mathewson, Paul D. Miller, Paul A. Graham, Russell W. Williams, John W. Mechanistic modeling of environmental drivers of woolly mammoth carrying capacity declines on St. Paul Island |
topic_facet |
Ecology Beringia carrying capacity dynamic vegetation model extinction Holocene island biogeography LPJ-GUESS mechanistic niche model megafauna Niche Mapper woolly mammoth |
description |
On St. Paul Island, a remnant of the Bering Land Bridge, woolly mammoths persisted until 5,600 yr BP with no known predators or competitors, providing a natural system for studying hypothesized environmental drivers of extinction. These include overheating due to rising temperatures, starvation, and drought. Here, we test these hypotheses using Niche Mapper and LPJ-GUESS to mechanistically estimate mammoth metabolic rates and dietary and freshwater requirements and, from these, estimate variations in island carrying capacity on St. Paul for the last 17,000 yr. Population carrying capacity may have been several hundred individuals at the time of initial isolation from the mainland. Adult mammoths could have fasted for two to three months, indicating a necessary ability to access snow-buried forage. During the Holocene, vegetation net primary productivity increased, but shrinking island area overrode increased net primary productivity (NPP), lowering carrying capacity to ~100 individuals. NPP and freshwater availability alternated as critical limiting factors for this island population during the environmental changes of the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Only two or three individuals could have been sustained by the freshwater surplus in crater lakes (up to 18 individuals under the most optimistic parameter sensitivity experiments), suggesting that the St. Paul mammoth population was highly dependent on coastal freshwater sources. The simulations are consistent with the available proxy data, while highlighting the need to retrieve new paleohydrological proxy records from the coastal lagoons to test model predictions. More broadly, these findings reinforce the vulnerability of island megaherbivore populations to resource limitation and extinction. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wang, Yue Porter, Warren Mathewson, Paul D. Miller, Paul A. Graham, Russell W. Williams, John W. |
author_facet |
Wang, Yue Porter, Warren Mathewson, Paul D. Miller, Paul A. Graham, Russell W. Williams, John W. |
author_sort |
Wang, Yue |
title |
Mechanistic modeling of environmental drivers of woolly mammoth carrying capacity declines on St. Paul Island |
title_short |
Mechanistic modeling of environmental drivers of woolly mammoth carrying capacity declines on St. Paul Island |
title_full |
Mechanistic modeling of environmental drivers of woolly mammoth carrying capacity declines on St. Paul Island |
title_fullStr |
Mechanistic modeling of environmental drivers of woolly mammoth carrying capacity declines on St. Paul Island |
title_full_unstemmed |
Mechanistic modeling of environmental drivers of woolly mammoth carrying capacity declines on St. Paul Island |
title_sort |
mechanistic modeling of environmental drivers of woolly mammoth carrying capacity declines on st. paul island |
publisher |
Ecological Society of America |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7e031d50-021c-4ab1-a674-25c6bfb45598 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2524 |
genre |
Bering Land Bridge Beringia |
genre_facet |
Bering Land Bridge Beringia |
op_source |
Ecology; 99(12), pp 2721-2730 (2018) ISSN: 0012-9658 |
op_relation |
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7e031d50-021c-4ab1-a674-25c6bfb45598 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2524 pmid:30365160 scopus:85055581334 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2524 |
container_title |
Ecology |
container_volume |
99 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
2721 |
op_container_end_page |
2730 |
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1799477738618224640 |