While the anthropogenic impact on ecosystems today is evident, it remains unclear if the detrimental
effect of hominins on co-occurring biodiversity is a recent phenomenon or has also been
the pattern for earlier hominin species. We test this using the East African carnivore fossil record.
We analyse the diversity of carnivores over the last four million years and investigate whether any
decline is related to an increase in hominin cognitive capacity, vegetation changes or climatic
changes. We find that extinction rates in large carnivores correlate with increased hominin brain
size and with vegetation changes, but not with precipitation or temperature changes. While temporal
analyses cannot distinguish between the effects of vegetation changes and hominins, we
show through spatial analyses of contemporary carnivores in Africa that only hominin causation
is plausible. Our results suggest that substantial anthropogenic influence on biodiversity started
millions of years earlier than currently assumed.
2020. Vol. 23, p. 537-544
anthropogenic, bayesian, carnivora, humans, pleistocene, pliocene, PyRate.