title: Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia.
abstract: Late Quaternary megafauna extinctions impoverished mammalian diversity worldwide. The causes of these extinctions in Australia are most controversial but essential to resolve, because this continent-wide event presaged similar losses that occurred thousands of years later on other continents. Here we apply a rigorous metadata analysis and new ensemble-hindcasting approach to 659 Australian megafauna fossil ages. When coupled with analysis of several high-resolution climate records, we show that megafaunal extinctions were broadly synchronous among genera and independent of climate aridity and variability in Australia over the last 120,000 years. Our results reject climate change as the primary driver of megafauna extinctions in the world's most controversial context, and instead estimate that the megafauna disappeared Australia-wide ∼13,500 years after human arrival, with shorter periods of coexistence in some regions. This is the first comprehensive approach to incorporate uncertainty in fossil ages, extinction timing and climatology, to quantify mechanisms of prehistorical extinctions.
authors.affiliation: The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: Frédérik
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Saltré
authors.affiliation: The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Rey
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Private Bag 55, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
authors.forename: Barry W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Brook
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Private Bag 55, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
authors.forename: Christopher N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of NSW, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Chris S M
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Turney
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alroy
authors.affiliation: The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.|Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7738-7851
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Private Bag 55, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8513-3165
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Beeton
authors.affiliation: Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Studies, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland 4878, Australia.
authors.forename: Michael I
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1801-8703
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Bird
authors.affiliation: The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: Damien A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Fordham
authors.affiliation: Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia.|Department of Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gillespie
authors.affiliation: The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.|Department of Biogeography and Global Change, National Museum of Natural Sciences-Spanish Research Council (CSIC), c/José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Salvador
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Herrando-Pérez
authors.affiliation: Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia.
authors.forename: Zenobia
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jacobs
authors.affiliation: Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0450, USA.|Environment and Agriculture Curtin University Perth, Perth, Western Australia 6102, Australia.
authors.forename: Gifford H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen DK-2100, Denmark.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Nogués-Bravo
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Austalia 5042, Australia.
authors.forename: Gavin J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Prideaux
authors.affiliation: Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia.
authors.forename: Richard G
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0128-4119
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.affiliation: The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: Corey J A
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Bradshaw
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001315:Australia; D057231:Climate Change; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D006801:Humans; D010163:Paleontology; D013997:Time Factors
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