Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Te Pūnaha Matatini, Centre of Research Excellence for Complex Systems, The University of Auckland (Host), Auckland, New Zealand.
PLoS One. 2022 Mar 30;17(3):e0265224. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265224. eCollection 2022.
Knowledge of biodiversity in the past, and the timing, nature, and drivers of human-induced ecological change, is important for gaining deep time perspectives and for modern conservation efforts. The Marquesas Islands (Polynesia) are one of the world's most remote archipelagos and illustrate the vulnerability of indigenous bioscapes to anthropogenic activities. Characterised by high levels of endemism across many biotic groups, the full spectrum of the group's flora and fauna is nonetheless incompletely known. Several centuries of Polynesian settlement reshaped biotic communities in ways that are not yet fully understood, and historically-introduced mammalian herbivores have devastated the indigenous lowland flora. We report here on archaeological recovery of a diverse assemblage of plant and arthropod subfossils from a waterlogged deposit on the largest Marquesan island: Nuku Hiva. These materials offer new perspectives on the composition of lowland plant and arthropod communities pene-contemporaneous with human arrival. Bayesian analysis of multiple 14C results from short-lived materials date the assemblages to the mid-12th century AD (1129-1212 cal. AD, 95.4% HPD). Evidence for human activities in the catchment coincident with deposit formation includes Polynesian associated arthropods, microcharcoal, and an adzed timber. Plant macrofossils (seeds, fruits, vegetative structures) and microfossils (pollen, phytoliths) reveal coastal and lowland wet-moist forest communities unlike those observed today. Several apparently extinct taxa are identified, along with extant taxa currently constrained to high altitude and/or interior areas. A diverse inventory of subfossil arthropods-the first pre-18th century records for the islands-includes more than 100 distinct taxa, with several new archipelago records and one previously unreported for eastern Polynesia. The assemblages provide new insights into lowland Marquesan forest communities coincident with human arrival, and portend the considerable anthropogenic transformations that followed. These records also have implications for human colonisation of the Marquesas Islands and East Polynesia at large.
过去的生物多样性知识，以及人类引起的生态变化的时间、性质和驱动因素，对于获得深刻的时间视角和现代保护工作都很重要。马克萨斯群岛（波利尼西亚）是世界上最偏远的群岛之一，说明了土著生物景观对人类活动的脆弱性。该群岛的许多生物群都具有高水平的特有性，但其动植物群的全貌仍然不完全为人所知。几个世纪的波利尼西亚人定居改变了生物群落的形态，这些变化尚未被完全理解，历史上引入的哺乳动物食草动物已经摧毁了当地的低地植物群。我们在这里报告了从最大的马克萨斯岛上一个积水沉积物中回收的植物和节肢动物亚化石的多样性组合。这些材料为与人类到达同时代的低地植物和节肢动物群落的组成提供了新的视角。对来自短期材料的多个 14C 结果的贝叶斯分析将这些组合的年代定在公元 12 世纪中叶（1129-1212 年，95.4%的 HPD）。与沉积物形成同时发生的集水区人类活动的证据包括与波利尼西亚相关的节肢动物、微木炭和一个锛木。植物大化石（种子、果实、营养结构）和微化石（花粉、植硅石）揭示了沿海和低地湿润森林群落，与今天观察到的不同。确定了几个明显灭绝的分类群，以及目前限于高海拔和/或内陆地区的现存分类群。亚化石节肢动物的多样化清单-这些是该群岛 18 世纪以前的第一批记录-包括 100 多个不同的分类群，其中有几个是新的群岛记录，还有一个以前在东波利尼西亚没有报道过。这些组合为与人类到达同时代的低地马克萨斯森林群落提供了新的见解，并预示着随后发生的相当大的人为转变。这些记录也对人类对马克萨斯群岛和整个东波利尼西亚的殖民化产生了影响。
