Vertebrate community on an ice-age Caribbean island.
We report 95 vertebrate taxa (13 fishes, 11 reptiles, 63 birds, 8 mammals) from late Pleistocene bone deposits in Sawmill Sink, Abaco, The Bahamas. The >5,000 fossils were recovered by scuba divers on ledges at depths of 27-35 m below sea level. Of the 95 species, 39 (41%) no longer occur on Abaco (4 reptiles, 31 birds, 4 mammals). We estimate that 17 of the 39 losses (all of them birds) are linked to changes during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition (PHT) (∼ 15-9 ka) in climate (becoming more warm and moist), habitat (expansion of broadleaf forest at the expense of pine woodland), sea level (rising from -80 m to nearly modern levels), and island area (receding from ∼ 17,000 km(2) to 1,214 km(2)). The remaining 22 losses likely are related to the presence of humans on Abaco for the past 1,000 y. Thus, the late Holocene arrival of people probably depleted more populations than the dramatic physical and biological changes associated with the PHT.
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611;
David W
DW
Steadman
National Museum of The Bahamas, Marsh Harbour, Abaco, The Bahamas;
Nancy A
NA
Albury
Bahamas Underground, Marsh Harbour, Abaco, The Bahamas;
Brian
B
Kakuk
Department of Geosciences, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 37614; Mammoth Site, Hot Springs, SD 57747;
Jim I
JI
Mead
Department of Mammalogy, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024;
J Angel
JA
Soto-Centeno
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611;
Hayley M
HM
Singleton
School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287 janet.franklin@asu.edu.
Janet
J
Franklin
D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000145:classification*; D014900:West Indies
Pleistocene; extinction; fossils; island; vertebrates