ERC Starting Grant · 2021
Island ecosystem ecology from deep prehistory to the Anthropocene
Humans are fragmenting ecosystems into habitat 'islands', causing an unprecedented global collapse of large mammal populations just as science is discovering their essential ecological roles. The impact of these losses is such that our understanding of the contemporary biosphere is clearly shaped by a world artificially depleted of terrestrial giants. However, the causes of megafaunal extinctions over a much deeper, >50,000-year timeframe remain strongly contested. How did specific anthropogenic and/or climate factors interact to transform and collapse megafaunal ecosystems and what implications did this have for human societies at different points in time? The feedbacks and ecological…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.