Burney David A, Flannery Timothy F
National Tropical Botanical Garden, 3530 Papalina Road, Kalaheo, HI 96741, USA.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2005 Jul;20(7):395-401. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2005.04.022.
Debate continues to rage between enthusiasts for climate change versus humans as a cause of the catastrophic faunal extinctions that have occurred in the wake of human arrival in previously uninhabited regions of the world. A global pattern of human arrival to such landmasses, followed by faunal collapse and other ecological changes, appears without known exception. This strongly suggests to some investigators that a more interesting extinction debate lies within the realm of potential human-caused explanations and how climate might exacerbate human impacts. New observations emerging from refined dating techniques, paleoecology and modeling suggest that the megafaunal collapses of the Americas and Australia, as well as most prehistoric island biotic losses, trace to a variety of human impacts, including rapid overharvesting, biological invasions, habitat transformation and disease.
关于气候变化与人类谁是导致灾难性动物灭绝的原因，这一争论在气候变暖支持者和人类活动影响论者之间愈演愈烈。自从人类抵达世界上此前无人居住的地区后，就出现了一种全球模式：人类到达这些大陆后，紧接着动物种群数量锐减以及其他生态变化，无一例外。这让一些研究人员强烈认为，更值得探讨的灭绝问题在于潜在的人类活动导致的解释，以及气候如何加剧人类影响。从精确的年代测定技术、古生态学和模型中得出的新观察结果表明，美洲和澳大利亚的巨型动物灭绝，以及大多数史前岛屿生物的消失，都可追溯到多种人类影响，包括快速过度捕猎、生物入侵、栖息地改变和疾病。
