scholarly journals Historic and prehistoric human-driven extinctions have reshaped global mammal diversity patterns

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Søren Faurby ◽  
Jens-Christian Svenning
Keyword(s):  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Mammalian Species ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Environmental Diversity ◽  
Diversity Patterns ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Functional And Phylogenetic Diversity ◽  
Induced Changes ◽  
Mammal Diversity

Aim: To assess the extent to which humans have reshaped Earth's biodiversity, by estimating natural ranges of all late Quaternary mammalian species, and to compare diversity patterns based on these with diversity patterns based on current distributions. Location: Globally Methods: We estimated species, functional and phylogenetic diversity patterns based on natural ranges of all mammalian species (n=5747 species) as they could have been today in the complete absence of human influence through time. Following this we compared macroecological analyses of current and natural diversity patterns to assess if human-induced range changes bias for evolutionary and ecological analyses based on current diversity patterns. Results: We find that current diversity patterns have been drastically modified by humans, mostly due to global extinctions and regional to local extirpations. Current and natural diversities exhibit marked deviations virtually everywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa. These differences are strongest for terrestrial megafauna, but also important for all mammals combined. The human-induced changes led to biases in estimates of environmental diversity drivers, especially for terrestrial megafauna, but also for all mammals combined. Main conclusions: Our results show that fundamental diversity patterns have been reshaped by human-driven extinctions and extirpations, highlighting humans as a major force in the Earth system. We thereby emphasize that estimating natural distributions and diversities is important to improve our understanding of the evolutionary and ecologically drivers of diversity as well as for providing a benchmark for conservation.

Late Quaternary Extinction of Ungulates in Sub-Saharan Africa: a Reductionist's Approach

1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joris Peters ◽  
Achilles Gautier ◽  
James S. Brink ◽  
Wim Haenen
Keyword(s):  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan

scholarly journals Negotiating an ecological barrier: crossing the Sahara in relation to winds by common swifts

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1704) ◽  
pp. 20150393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Åkesson ◽  
Giuseppe Bianco ◽  
Anders Hedenström
Keyword(s):  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Breeding Sites ◽  
Western Sahara ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Ultimate Explanation ◽  
Wintering Areas ◽  
Central Route ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Alternative Routes

The Sahara Desert is one of the largest land-based barriers on the Earth, crossed twice each year by billions of birds on migration. Here we investigate how common swifts migrating between breeding sites in Sweden and wintering areas in sub-Saharan Africa perform the desert crossing with respect to route choice, winds, timing and speed of migration by analysing 72 geolocator tracks recording migration. The swifts cross western Sahara on a broad front in autumn, while in spring they seem to use three alternative routes across the Sahara, a western, a central and an eastern route across the Arabian Peninsula, with most birds using the western route. The swifts show slower migration and travel speeds, and make longer detours with more stops in autumn compared with spring. In spring, the stopover period in West Africa coincided with mostly favourable winds, but birds remained in the area, suggesting fuelling. The western route provided more tailwind assistance compared with the central route for our tracked swifts in spring, but not in autumn. The ultimate explanation for the evolution of a preferred western route is presumably a combination of matching rich foraging conditions (swarming insects) and favourable winds enabling fast spring migration. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Moving in a moving medium: new perspectives on flight’.

Energy–Water–Food Nexus and Recommendations for Security

2014 ◽  
Vol 137 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaufui Vincent Wong
Keyword(s):  
Geothermal Energy ◽  
Electricity Generation ◽  
Rankine Cycle ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Major Factors

The clean, renewable sources of energy are the wind, water, and the sun. Geothermal energy from the Earth is a good source of energy for electricity generation that has not been fully utilized. Sustainable energy sources must have “respect for environment” in the center of the 4-cornered diamond. Respect for the environment is very critical for the energy sources to be long lasting and thus sustainable. Respect for the environment needs to be the central philosophy of keeping the three components of the environment clean and healthy. These components—air, water and the land, overlap three of the four sources of clean energy. Mankind has to be responsible custodians of these three natural resources. One main cause of the energy–water nexus is that about 90% of the world's electricity is manufactured following the Rankine cycle for power generation, and water is used for the removal of heat from the condenser. The energy–water–food nexus arise in some parts of the world mainly because of the local climatic conditions. High population density involved mainly with agriculture and adverse climatic events (floods from melting glaciers owing to climate change) are the major factors that cause these energy–water–food nexus problems. Areas identified to have these energy–water–food problems include several parts of Saharan Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Japan, and the Punjab.

scholarly journals Climate Signals in River Flood Damages Emerge under Sound Regional Disaggregation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inga Sauer ◽  
Ronja Reese ◽  
Christian Otto ◽  
Tobias Geiger ◽  
Sven N. Willner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Climate Signal ◽  
Hazard Exposure ◽  
River Flood ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Climate Signals ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Induced Changes

Abstract Climate change highly affects precipitation patterns. Here, we address the question whether the signal of climate change is already detectable in time series of reported damages caused by fluvial floods. Building on hazard indicators from process-based hydrological simulations, we develop an empirical model to reconstruct reported damages and quantify individual contributions of climate-induced changes in hazard, exposure, and vulnerability to observed trends. Across nine world regions, trends in damages are generally dominated by increasing exposure and decreasing vulnerability, with the latter being most pronounced in less developed regions. However, accounting for heterogeneity in changes of hazard frequency and magnitude within a region, a climate signal is detectable, especially in South and Sub-Saharan Africa as well as in Latin America. Damages in most regions are subject to a monotonous trend even after accounting for natural variability where an effect of long-term global warming can not yet be distinguished from a potential influence from multidecadal oscillations.

The Late Quaternary Mammalian Fauna of Nelson Bay Cave (Cape Province, South Africa): Its Implications for Megafaunal Extinctions and Environmental and Cultural Change

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (02) ◽  
pp. 135-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Klein
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Mammalian Species ◽  
Mammalian Fauna ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Terminal Pleistocene ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Rising Sea Level

Nelson Bay Cave is located on the Robberg Peninsula (34°06′ S, 23°24′ E) at Plettenberg Bay, Cape Province, South Africa. Excavation of the Late Quaternary fill of the cave has provided a rich assemblage of mammalian remains dated between ca. 18,000 and 5000 radiocarbon years B.P. Identification and analysis of these remains has shown that important changes in the composition of the mammalian fauna took place first about 12,000 B.P. and again about 9000 B.P. The earlier change is especially clear-cut and is interpreted to reflect the disappearance of grassland from the area as well as the influence of rising sea level. Both faunal changes were accompanied by changes in associated artifactual materials and it is suggested that faunal and cultural changes were causally linked. The mammalian species dated between 18,000 and 12,000 B.P. include the latest recorded Sub-Saharan occurrences of some extinct taxa and indicate that terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene megafaunal extinctions may have been more important in Southern Africa than has hitherto been thought.

I dannati della terra: The Italian left facing the Third World on the eve of 1968

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-410
Author(s):  
Mariano Mestman
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Third ◽  
European Cinema ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Third World

The Italian film I dannati della terra (The Damned of the Earth) (Orsini and Filippi 1968) is a prominent example of the connection between the European cinema of intervention and the Third World struggles of the 1960s. Set as a ‘film within a film’, the movie tells the story of a leftist filmmaker, Fausto Morelli, who faces the challenge of finishing a film about the liberation struggles of sub-Saharan Africa by building on the documentary footage that was bequeathed to him by his student and friend, the young Abramo Malonga, an African (Bantu). This article recovers overlooked and little-known documents about the film to show that it is the expression of an active cinematic Third Worldism forged in previous years between the legacy of the Resistenza Partigiana (Italian Resistance) and the Third World struggles of the 1960s. At the same time, the article analyses the ways in which the film ‘dialogues’ with experimental trends of the contemporary avant-garde artistic scene in order to challenge the viewer to debate the ‘open ideological hypothesis’ of the film and take an active part in the political struggles of the time.

Mid-Pleistocene Change in Large Mammal Faunas of East Africa

1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Potts ◽  
Alan Deino
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Large Mammal ◽  
Geographic Ranges ◽  
Extant Species ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Mammal Faunas ◽  
Age Estimates

AbstractSingle-crystal 40Ar/39Ar age estimates of 392,000 ± 4000 to 330,000 ± 6000 yr from Lainyamok, a middle Pleistocene fossil locality in the southern Kenya rift, document the oldest evidence from sub-Saharan Africa of a diverse, large mammal fauna consisting entirely of extant species. The inferred age of this fauna implies an upper limit for extinction of species that characterize well-calibrated, mid-Pleistocene fossil assemblages in East Africa. For its age and species richness, the Lainyamok fauna is surprising for its lack of extinct forms (e.g., the bovine Pelorovis) well documented in later faunal assemblages of East and South Africa. Definitive presence of the South African blesbok (Damaliscus dorcas) is also unexpected, especially as this alcelaphine bovid is the dominant large mammal in the Lainyamok fauna. These age estimates and the faunal composition at Lainyamok indicate that geographic ranges and taxonomic associations of extant largebodied mammals were susceptible to wide fluctuations in sub-Saharan Africa over the past 330,000 yr. This inference is consistent with the hypothesis of nonanalogue, or ephemeral, biotas believed to characterize late Quaternary ecosystems of northern continents.

RTS,S/AS01, a vaccine targeting pre-erythrocytic stages of Plasmodium falciparum

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 533-537
Author(s):  
Lorenz von Seidlein ◽  
Borimas Hanboonkunupakarn ◽  
Podjanee Jittmala ◽  
Sasithon Pukrittayakamee
Keyword(s):  
Protective Efficacy ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Phase Iii ◽  
European Medicines Agency ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Pivotal Phase ◽  
Malaria Epidemiology ◽  
Maximum Benefit ◽  
Sub Saharan

RTS,S/AS01 is the most advanced vaccine to prevent malaria. It is safe and moderately effective. A large pivotal phase III trial in over 15 000 young children in sub-Saharan Africa completed in 2014 showed that the vaccine could protect around one-third of children (aged 5–17 months) and one-fourth of infants (aged 6–12 weeks) from uncomplicated falciparum malaria. The European Medicines Agency approved licensing and programmatic roll-out of the RTSS vaccine in malaria endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa. WHO is planning further studies in a large Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme, in more than 400 000 young African children. With the changing malaria epidemiology in Africa resulting in older children at risk, alternative modes of employment are under evaluation, for example the use of RTS,S/AS01 in older children as part of seasonal malaria prophylaxis. Another strategy is combining mass drug administrations with mass vaccine campaigns for all age groups in regional malaria elimination campaigns. A phase II trial is ongoing to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the RTSS in combination with antimalarial drugs in Thailand. Such novel approaches aim to extract the maximum benefit from the well-documented, short-lasting protective efficacy of RTS,S/AS01.

Mortality and Society in Sub-Saharan Africa

1993 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-556
Author(s):  
Lado Ruzicka
Keyword(s):  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan
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