Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 372, Issue 6541, Pages 488-+Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.abd6706
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Funding
- Juan de la Cierva Fellowship - Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades [IJCI-2014-19502]
- Portuguese Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia [CEEIND/03425/2017]
- European Research Council under the EU H2020 research and innovation program Humans on Planet Earth-LongTerm Impacts on Biosphere Dynamics (HOPE grant) [741413]
- European Research Council [ERC-SyG-2013610028 IMBALANCE-P]
- European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant) [700952]
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [STE 2360/2-1, FOR 2332]
- Swedish Research Council (VR)
- Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) Research Mobility Programme
- European Research Council under the EU H2020 and Research and Innovation program (SAPPHIRE grant) [818854]
- European Research Council (ERC) [818854] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)
- Marie Curie Actions (MSCA) [700952] Funding Source: Marie Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Islands are among the last regions on Earth to be settled and transformed by human activities, and research shows that vegetation change on islands accelerates significantly after human arrival. This global acceleration in turnover suggests that islands are continuously undergoing change, highlighting the importance of considering long-term human impacts in strategies for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration.
Islands are among the last regions on Earth settled and transformed by human activities, and they provide replicated model systems for analysis of how people affect ecological functions. By analyzing 27 representative fossil pollen sequences encompassing the past 5000 years from islands globally, we quantified the rates of vegetation compositional change before and after human arrival. After human arrival, rates of turnover accelerate by a median factor of 11, with faster rates on islands colonized in the past 1500 years than for those colonized earlier. This global anthropogenic acceleration in turnover suggests that islands are on trajectories of continuing change. Strategies for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration must acknowledge the long duration of human impacts and the degree to which ecological changes today differ from prehuman dynamics.
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