TY - JOUR

T1 - Long-term effects of cultural filtering on megafauna species distributions across China

AU - Teng, Shuqing N.

AU - Xu, Chi

AU - Teng, Licheng

AU - Svenning, Jens Christian

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Human activities currently play a dominant role in shaping and eroding Earth’s biodiversity, but the historical dynamics leading to this situation are poorly understood and contentious. Importantly, these dynamics are often studied and discussed without an emphasis on cultural evolution, despite its potential importance for past and present biodiversity dynamics. Here, we investigate whether cultural filtering, defined as the impact of cultural evolution on species presence, has driven the range dynamics of five historically widespread megafauna taxa (Asiatic elephant, rhinoceroses, tiger, Asiatic black bear, and brown bear) across China over the past 2 millennia. Data on megafauna and sociocultural history were compiled from Chinese administrative records. While faunal dynamics in China are often linked to climate change at these time scales, our results reveal cultural filtering as the dominant driver of range contractions in all five taxa. This finding suggests that the millennia-long spread of agricultural land and agricultural intensification, often accompanied by expansion of the Han culture, has been responsible for the extirpation of these megafauna species from much of China. Our results suggest that cultural filtering is important for understanding society’s role in the assembly of contemporary communities from historical regional species pools. Our study provides direct evidence that cultural evolution since ancient times has overshadowed climate change in shaping broadscale megafauna biodiversity patterns, reflecting the strong and increasing importance of sociocultural processes in the biosphere.

AB - Human activities currently play a dominant role in shaping and eroding Earth’s biodiversity, but the historical dynamics leading to this situation are poorly understood and contentious. Importantly, these dynamics are often studied and discussed without an emphasis on cultural evolution, despite its potential importance for past and present biodiversity dynamics. Here, we investigate whether cultural filtering, defined as the impact of cultural evolution on species presence, has driven the range dynamics of five historically widespread megafauna taxa (Asiatic elephant, rhinoceroses, tiger, Asiatic black bear, and brown bear) across China over the past 2 millennia. Data on megafauna and sociocultural history were compiled from Chinese administrative records. While faunal dynamics in China are often linked to climate change at these time scales, our results reveal cultural filtering as the dominant driver of range contractions in all five taxa. This finding suggests that the millennia-long spread of agricultural land and agricultural intensification, often accompanied by expansion of the Han culture, has been responsible for the extirpation of these megafauna species from much of China. Our results suggest that cultural filtering is important for understanding society’s role in the assembly of contemporary communities from historical regional species pools. Our study provides direct evidence that cultural evolution since ancient times has overshadowed climate change in shaping broadscale megafauna biodiversity patterns, reflecting the strong and increasing importance of sociocultural processes in the biosphere.

KW - Agricultural intensification

KW - Biodiversity conservation

KW - Cultural evolution

KW - Extinction

KW - Human migration

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85077506572&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1909896116

DO - 10.1073/pnas.1909896116

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 31871171

AN - SCOPUS:85077506572

VL - 117

SP - 486

EP - 493

JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

SN - 0027-8424

IS - 1

ER -