One of my current research projects is investigating the potential impact of population level extinction in human evolutionary history. I am focusing my efforts on Late Pleistocene Europe because it is a time and a place that we have a lot of overlapping, but related lines of evidence. This evidence includes fossils, stratified archaeological sequences, a partial eco-climatic record, and contemporary and prehistoric humna genetic variation. Here is a collection of semi-related quotes from tonight’s readings on the topic:
“However, it is appealing to consider the hypothesis that the late Pleistocene increase in effective population size is at least partially explained by a reduction in extinction rates, since the timing roughly corresponds to that of the “creative explosion” ad- vocated by some archeologists [e.g., Klein (1987)].”
– Eller, Hawks and Relethford (2009), Local Extinction and Recolonization, Species Effective Population Size, and Modern Human Origins, Human Biology
“Finally, demographic estimates for western Europe but excluding Iberia have been made by Bocquet-Appel & Demars (2000). Using a refugium based on the Dordogne, the metapopulation at maximum contraction is estimated to have been 9000 people. This rises to 40 000 with the expansion into northern Europe. This represents a geo- graphical range increasing from 0.55 million square kilo- metres to 1.22 million square kilometres. If these estimates are extended to the Iberian refuge, the total population of western Europe expanded from 17 000 (population event 1) to 64 000 (population events 3 and 4) (table 6).”
– Gamble, Davies, Pettitt & Richards (2005), Climate change and evolving human diversity in Europe during the last glacial, Phil. Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B
“Metapopulation dynamics, for instance, indicates that locally rare species are more likely to have a narrower geographic range because they have poorer dispersal and thus fewer source populations (36). A major implication of both the niche-breadth and metapopulation explanations is that rare species are faced with synergistic forces that may make them much more prone to extinction than abundant species (61, 62). In addition to being more localized, sparse, and relatively more specialized, rare species have more fragmented geographic ranges that can amplify population decline through metapopulation and edge effects (70).”
– McKinney (1997), EXTINCTION VULNERABILITY AND SELECTIVITY: Combining Ecological and Paleontological Views, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics
“Although it is currently unknown whether, or to what extent, this maternal population structure was culturally mediated, the finding supports the growing consensus that the Pleistocene hominin presence in Africa was a collection of partially isolated subpopulations rather than a single, geographically continuous population.”
– Premo & Hublin (2009), Culture, population structure, and low genetic diversity in Pleistocene hominins, PNAS
