Inheritors of the Earth

by Chris D. Thomas

  Photo: Lucy (child) and Rex (wolfhound), copyright © Aldina Franco.

  Photo: Family wedding in 1951, probably by Ambler Thomas.

  CHAPTER 4

  Photo: Giant mole-rat copyright © Stuart Orford.

  Comma butterfly map: thanks to Georgina Palmer.

  CHAPTER 6

  Photo: Pukeko copyright © Tony Wills.

  Photo: Takahe copyright © Ashleigh Thompson.

  CHAPTER 7

  Photos: Edith’s checkerspot butterfly number 6 copyright © Michael C. Singer; remaining checkerspot adults, eggs and larvae copyright © Paul Severns.

  Photo: Chris Thomas in a snowy campsite copyright © Michael C. Singer and Camille Parmesan.

  Bulldog images:

  1. Bulldog (1790) by Philip Reinagle.

  2. Handsome Dan (around 1890), photograph by Pach Brothers (courtesy of Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database, public domain).

  3. Standing bulldog (2010) copyright © Wikipedia Creative Commons.

  CHAPTER 8

  Photos: Diamante boat/seascape, and mockingbird portrait, copyright © Stephen Dempsey; adult and young mockingbird copyright © Erik Vikander.

  Photo: Californian yellow star-thistle copyright © Daniel Montesinos.

  Photos: Hawthorn fly, apple fly and parasitoid copyright © Hannes Schuler.

  CHAPTER 9

  Photo: Kakapo and Jacqueline Beggs copyright © Andrew Digby (Department of Conservation); courtesy of Jacqueline Beggs.

  CHAPTER 11

  Photos: Monarch butterfly and Eucalyptus copyright © Stuart Weiss.

  Photos: Monterey pine photographs copyright © Chris Earle.

  Chris D. Thomas is a professor of conservation biology at the University of York, UK. A prolific writer, he has published 210 scientific journal articles, 29 book chapters, edited one academic book, and has written around 20 magazine and other popular articles since 2000. His works have been cited more than 26,000 times, making him one of the world’s most influential ecologists, and his research has been covered on the front pages of the Guardian and Washington Post. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2012, is a long-standing fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, and received Marsh Awards for Climate Change Research in 2011 and for Conservation Biology in 2004 and the prestigious British Ecological Society President’s Medal in 2001.

  Notes

  PROLOGUE

  1. I am defining ecological success as survival in human-altered locations, and ecological gain to be an increase in the numbers of individuals, range of habitats or geographic distribution of a particular species, irrespective of whether any evolutionary change has taken place. I also include increases in diversity in a given location within my definition of ecological gain. I consider evolutionary success and gain to be instances where survival (when considering success) and increased abundance, use of new habitats and an enlarged distribution (when considering gains) are underpinned by evolutionary change or by the previously evolved characteristics of different types of species. I include evolved increases in diversity (such as one species evolving into two) within my definition of evolutionary gain.

  2. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species summary statistics, http://www.iucnredlist.org/about/summary-statistics#How_many_threatened, accessed 1 January 2017.

  3. I leave others to discuss how many of my conclusions hold for the marine realm.

  CHAPTER 1: BIOGENESIS

  1. Sætre, G. P. et al. (2012), ‘Single origin of human commensalism in the house sparrow’, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 25, 788–96.

  2. Lever, C. (2005), Naturalised Birds of the World, London: Poyser.

  3. Robinson, R. A. et al. (2015), BirdTrends 2015: Trends in numbers, breeding success and survival for UK breeding birds. Research Report 678, Thetford: BTO; Rich, T. D. et al. (2004), Partners in Flight: North American landbird conservation plan, Ithaca, NY: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; BirdLife International (2016) Species factsheet: Passer domesticus, downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org, 12 January 2016.

  4. No criticism of the research itself. I am merely questioning why the decline in the house-sparrow population is regarded as an ecological or conservation crisis. Research on this topic includes: Hole, D. G. et al. (2002), ‘Agriculture: Widespread local house-sparrow extinctions’, Nature, 418, 931–2; Peach, W. J., Sheehan, D. K. & Kirby, W. B. (2014), ‘Supplementary feeding of mealworms enhances reproductive success in garden nesting House Sparrows Passer domesticus’, Bird Study, 61, 378–85.

  5. Dawson, W. L. (1903), Birds of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio: Wheaton Publishing Company.

  6. http://michiganbluebirds.org, accessed 29 July 2015.

  7. Analysis of Audubon Christmas Bird Count data 1951–2014. Sparrow numbers have declined by over 60 per cent (an average of 12.16 house sparrows per party hour were counted in 1951–60, compared to 4.51 per party hour in 2005–14), while Eastern bluebirds have increased by about 50 per cent (an average of 0.42 bluebirds per party hour in 1951–60, compared to 0.62 per party hour in 2005–14). Eastern bluebirds do not decline (change in counts from one year to the next) following years when the actual numbers of sparrows is high (R2 = 0.0014, n = 63 years, p = 0.77), or when numbers of sparrows increase (R2 = 0.0031, n = 62 years, p = 0.67). Equally, increases and decreases in sparrow numbers are not related to the numbers of bluebirds or to changes in the numbers of bluebirds. The North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), which measures abundances during the breeding season, also finds a statistically significant increase in the overall abundance of Eastern bluebirds and a decline in the numbers of house sparrows (over the period 1966–2013), including in the state of Michigan.

  8. Hall, K. D. (2007), ‘Guidelines for successful monitoring of Eastern Bluebird nest boxes’, Passenger Pigeon, 69, issue 2.

  9. Peterson, R. T., Mountfort, G. R. & Hollum, P. A. D. (1966), A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe, London: Collins (revised edition).

  10. Thanks to Fabrice Eroukhmanoff and Anna Runemark, as well as to Glenn-Peter Sætre and Richard Bailey. Research students in the project include Jo Hermansen, Tore Elgvin and Cassandra Trier.

  11. Hermansen, J. S. et al. (2011), ‘Hybrid speciation in sparrows I: Phenotypic intermediacy, genetic admixture and barriers to gene flow’, Molecular Ecology, 20, 3812–22; Elgvin, T. O. et al. (2011), ‘Hybrid speciation in sparrows II: A role for sex chromosomes?’, Molecular Ecology, 20, 3823–37; Trier, C. N. et al. (2014), ‘Evidence for mito-nuclear and sex-linked reproductive barriers between the hybrid Italian sparrow and its parent species’, PLOS Genetics, 10, e1004075.

  12. Zeder, M. A. (2008), ‘Domestication and early agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin: Origins, diffusion, and impact’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 105, 11597–604.

  13. Based on a twenty-minute internet search of current news; stories dated 3–17 December 2016.

  14. CNN quote; http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/12/world/sutter-vanishing-help/.

  15. Henderson, I. S. (2010), ‘North American Ruddy Ducks Oxyura jamaicensis in the United Kingdom–population development and control’, BOU Proceedings–The Impacts of Non-native Species.

  16. BirdLife International (2015), Himantopus novaezelandiae, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 2015.

  17. For readers unfamiliar with rugby, the New Zealand rugby team is their greatest source of sporting pride, and the team is known as the ‘All Blacks’.

  CHAPTER 2: FALL AND RISE

  1. The 30 December 2016 Chinese Government announcement of a cessation of commercial ivory sales and processing by the end of 2017 will, hopefully, reduce this problem; http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2016-12/30/content_5155017.htm

  2. Wittemyer, G. et al. (2014), ‘Illegal killing for ivory drives global decline in African elephants’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 111, 13117–21.

  3. Less so in West Africa, where cattle show some degree of resistance.

 
4. Some suggest that African elephants are three, rather than two, species, in which case four survive in total.

  5. Climatic changes also contributed, but only in the sense that humans were more likely to exterminate a species at times when their numbers were reduced by the climate; Cooper, A. et al. (2015), ‘Abrupt warming events drove Late Pleistocene Holarctic megafaunal turnover’, Science, 349, 602–6.

  6. Fariña, R. A, Vizcaíno, S. F. & De Iuliis, G. (2013), Megafauna: Giant Beasts of Pleistocene South America, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

  7. Based on average weights of males and females. A few bull eland and dromedaries weigh over a tonne, but their average is lower. The giraffe has recently been divided into four separate species; Fennessy, J. et al. (2016), ‘Multi-locus analyses reveal four giraffe species instead of one’, Current Biology, 26, 2543–9.

  8. Redrawn using data from Faurby, S. & Svenning, J.-C. (2015), ‘Historic and prehistoric human-driven extinctions have reshaped global mammal diversity patterns’, Diversity and Distributions 21, 1155–66.

  9. Duncan, R. P., Boyer, A. G. & Blackburn, T. M. (2013), ‘Magnitude and variation of prehistoric bird extinctions in the Pacific’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 110, 6436–41.

  10. These estimates include species listed by IUCN as (a) extinct in the wild (for which live specimens still survive in zoos, botanic gardens or seed banks), (b) completely extinct, and (c) possibly extinct and possibly extinct in the wild. This is the best estimate currently available.

  11. I am referring to the very large four-legged (and two-legged, two-handed) dinosaurs; birds are flying dinosaurs.

  12. The genetic (DNA) sequences of species diverge with increasing time, and genetic differences can be calibrated using fossils of known age. Authors are not in full agreement over the timing of events, but much bird diversity did exist before the terrestrial dinosaurs disappeared. Jetz, W. et al. (2012), ‘The global diversity of birds in space and time’, Nature, 491, 444–8; Claramunt, S. & Cracraft, J. (2015), ‘A new time tree reveals Earth history’s imprint on the evolution of modern birds,’ Science Advances, 1, e1501005.

  13. Moyle R. G. et al. (2016), ‘Tectonic collision and uplift of Wallacea triggered the global songbird radiation’, Nature Communications 7, 12709.

  14. Bininda-Emonds, O. R. P. et al. (2007), ‘The delayed rise of present-day mammals’, Nature, 446, 507–12; Meredith, R. W. et al. (2011), ‘Impacts of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution and KPg extinction on mammal diversification’, Science, 334, 521–4; O’Leary, M. A. et al. (2013), ‘The placental mammal ancestor and the post-‘K-Pg radiation of placentals’, Science, 339, 662–7; Puttick, M. N., Thomas, G. H. & Benton, M. J. (2016), ‘Dating placentalia: Morphological clocks fail to close the molecular fossil gap’, Evolution, 70, 873–6.

  15. Rainford, J. L. et al. (2014), ‘Phylogenetic distribution of extant richness suggests metamorphosis is a key innovation driving diversification in insects’, PLOS ONE, 9, e109085.

  16. Nichols, D. J. & Johnson, K. R. (2008), Plants and the KT Boundary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  17. Evans, A. R., et al. (2012), ‘The maximum rate of mammal evolution’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 109, 4187–90.

  18. McGovern, P. E. (2003), Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

  19. UN FAO figures for 2013.

  20. Smil, V. (2011), ‘Harvesting the biosphere: The human impact’, Population and Development Review, 613–36; Smith, F. A. et al. (2016), ‘Megafauna in the Earth system’, Ecography, 39, 99–108.

  21. Barnosky, A. D. (2008), ‘Megafauna biomass tradeoff as a driver of Quaternary and future extinctions’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 105 (Supplement 1), 11543–8; this statement does not apply to marine mammals, where numbers of the heaviest species collapsed far more recently and are only now recovering.

  22. Herrero, M. et al. (2013), ‘Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 110, 20888–93.

  23. On land only. Hunting (with sonars and nets) is still the norm in the oceans.

  24. Wearing fur remains sensible when it is a by-product of farming animals for their meat (it avoids waste). However, the modern stance against fur coats extends to social condemnation of wearing fur from our livestock. This condemnation does not generally extend to their skin (leather for shoes, etc.).

  25. For example, fur farming and animal coats remain popular in parts of Asia.

  26. Deinet, S. et al. (2013), Wildlife Comeback in Europe: The Recovery of Selected Mammal and Bird Species, London: Zoological Society of London.

  27. The present-day elephants may be derived from more than one introduction to Borneo because elephants were common gifts between rulers and have been transported by sea in the region for over six hundred years; Cranbrook, E., Payne, J. & Leh, C. M. U. (2008), ‘Origin of the elephants Elephas maximus of Borneo’, Sarawak Museum Journal, 63, 1–25.

  28. Shim, P. S. (2003), ‘Another look at the Borneo elephant’, Sabah Society Journal, 20, 7–14.

  29. One of the ‘Aichi targets’ for 2020 (Convention on Biological Diversity Strategic Plan for Biodiversity) relates to invasive alien species. It includes the control or eradication of priority species.

  30. Fernando, P. et al. (2003), ‘DNA analysis indicates that Asian elephants are native to Borneo and are therefore a high priority for conservation,’ PLOS Biology, 1, 110–15. These authors did not consider the alternative and more likely scenario that they were introduced from a genetically unique population elsewhere (probably Java). Apparent genetic uniqueness could also arise if the existing population is the product of multiple introductions from different locations.

  CHAPTER 3: NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD

  1. Corrales, F. & Badilla, A. (2005), Investigaciones Arqueologicas en Sitios con Esferas de Piedra, San José, Costa Rica: Delta del Diquís.

  2. Roberts, A. (2011), Evolution: The human story, London: Dorling Kindersley; Ellis, E. C. et al. (2013), ‘Used planet: A global history’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, 7978–85.

  3. Galetti, M. et al. (2009), ‘Hyper abundant mesopredators and bird extinction in an Atlantic forest island’, Zoologia, 26, 288–98.

  4. Based on the species–area relationship, which commonly takes the form log S = log C + Z*log A, where the number of species is represented by S and the area of an island or habitat remnant is denoted A, and C and Z are constants. The two estimates of survival given are based on Z = 0.15 (which is typical of samples from different areas on land) and Z = 0.25 (which is commonly the case when the samples are from water-surrounded islands–and would be appropriate for forest specialists that were isolated from other forests).

  5. Brooks, T. & Balmford, A. (1996), ‘Atlantic forest extinctions’, Nature, 380, 115. The authors split the analysis into four sub-regions, and then compiled the estimates of extinction for each region into one overall value.

  6. Brooks, T., Tobias, J. & Balmford, A. (1999), ‘Deforestation and bird extinctions in the Atlantic forest’, Animal Conservation, 2, 211–22.

  7. The situation is potentially even worse because the remaining forest is subdivided into small fragments; Schnell, J. K. et al. (2013), ‘Quantitative analysis of forest fragmentation in the Atlantic Forest reveals more threatened bird species than the current Red List’, PLOS ONE, 8, e65357.

  8. Canale, G. R. et al. (2012), ‘Pervasive defaunation of forest remnants in a tropical biodiversity hotspot’, PLOS ONE, 7, e41671.

  9. Gonçalves da Cruz, C. A. & Pimenta, B. (2004), Phrynomedusa fimbriata, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, version 2014.2: www.iucnredlist.org.

  10. Vellend, M. et al. (2013), ‘Global meta-analysis reveals no net change in local-scale plant biodiversity over time’, Proceedings of the National Academy o
f Sciences USA, 110, 19456–9; Dornelas, M. et al. (2014), ‘Assemblage time series reveal biodiversity change but not systematic loss’, Science, 344, 296–9.

  11. Newbold, T. et al. (2015), ‘Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity’, Nature, 520, 45–50. Estimated losses in this article relate to the number of species per unit area (e.g. per square metre or per hectare) of a single habitat, and do not refer to the number of species in an entire landscape.

  12. Matthias, W. et al. (2005), ‘From forest to farmland: Habitat effects on Afrotropical forest bird diversity’, Ecological Applications, 15, 1351–66.

  13. Bobo, K. S. et al. (2006), ‘From forest to farmland: Butterfly diversity and habitat associations along a gradient of forest conversion in south-western Cameroon’, Journal of Insect Conservation, 10, 29–42.

  14. Waltert, M. et al. (2011), ‘Assessing conservation values: Biodiversity and endemicity in tropical land use systems,’ PLOS ONE, 6, e16238.

  15. Maes, D. & Van Dyck, H. (2001), ‘Butterfly diversity loss in Flanders (north Belgium): Europe’s worst case scenario?’, Biological Conservation, 99, 263–76.

  16. Many recent losses were associated with historical habitats that were created by humans in the first place.

  17. Hanski, I. (2016), Messages from Islands: A Global Biodiversity Tour. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  18. Rosenzweig, M. L. (1995), Species Diversity in Space and Time, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  19. Hiley, J. R., Bradbury, R. B. and Thomas, C. D. (2016), ‘Impacts of habitat change and protected areas on alpha and beta diversity of Mexican birds’, Diversity and Distributions, 22, 1245–54.

  20. Stein, A., Gerstner, K. & Kreft, H. (2014), ‘Environmental heterogeneity as a universal driver of species richness across taxa, biomes and spatial scales’, Ecology Letters, 17, 866–80.