Small mammal diversity loss in response to late-Pleistocene climatic change

Jessica L. Blois (), Jenny L. McGuire and Elizabeth A. Hadly
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Jessica L. Blois: Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
Jenny L. McGuire: University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
Elizabeth A. Hadly: Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

Nature, 2010, vol. 465, issue 7299, 771-774

Abstract: Small-mammal survivors The worldwide extinctions of large mammals (megafauna) at the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 years ago are the stuff of headlines. Did they fall victim to human slaughter or climate change? But what of smaller mammals — rodents, insectivores and the like — which often provide much more comprehensive fossil records than megafauna, and which are much less likely to be the targets of hunting? A study of a rich small-mammal fauna from northern California shows that small mammals were much less likely to respond to the Pleistocene–Holocene transition by becoming extinct. Instead, diversity and evenness suffered, so that less abundant species became rarer, with more generalist 'weed-like' species becoming more common.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1038/nature09077

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