Class Readings and Plans for Tuesday, November 10
Extinction

• Group 1, the Pleistocene case should address the following questions and post answers by 9 pm on Monday, November 16: What is the evidence for and against human caused extinction of Pleistocene megafauna? How can archaeologists document human induced changes in biodiversity? What, if any, potential do these cases have for the conservation of biodiversity today?
  Readings
  • Janssen, M. A. and M. Scheffer. 2004. Overexploitation of renewable resources by ancient societies and the role of sunk-cost effects. Ecology and Society 9(1): 14pp.
  • Barnosky, Anthony D. Paul L. Koch, Robert S. Feranec, Scott L. Wing, Alan B. Shabel (2004) Assessing the Causes of Late Pleistocene Extinctions on the Continents. Science 306:70-75.
  • Grayson, D. K., & Meltzer, D. J. (2003). A requiem for North American overkill. Journal of Archaeological Science, 30(5), 585-593.


• Group 2, the island case should address the following questions and post answers by 9 pm on Monday, November 16: How have humans impacted endemic species on Pacific Islands? Were these impacts beneficial or detrimental? Can we consider islands to be "laboratories for the study of global processes" as some have suggested?
  Readings
  • Steadman, David W. (1997) Extinctions of Polynesian Birds: Reciprocal impacts of Birds and people. In Historical Ecology in the Pacific Islands: Prehistoric Environmental and Landscape Change, ed. by P.V. Kirch and T.L. Hunt. New Haven: Yale U. Press. Pp. 51-79.
  • Spriggs, Matthew (1997) Landscape catastrophe and landscape enhancement: are either or both true in the Pacific? In Historical Ecology in the Pacific Islands, ed. by P.V. Kirch and T.L. Hunt. Yale U Press, pp 80-104.


• Group 3, the North American re-wilding debate should address the following questions and post answers by 9 pm on Monday, November 16:: What are the prospects for bringing megafauna back to North American ecosystems? Is the introduction of surrogate fauna for extinct Pleistocene fauna reasonable? What would it achieve? Is it scientifically sound? Is it morally justified?
  Readings
  • Donlan, C. J., Berger, J., Bock, C. E., Bock, J. H., Burney, D. A., Estes, J. A., ... & Greene, H. W. (2006). Pleistocene rewilding: an optimistic agenda for twenty-first century conservation. The American Naturalist, 168(5), 660-681.
  • Rubenstein, D. R., Rubenstein, D. I., Sherman, P. W., & Gavin, T. A. (2006). Pleistocene Park: Does re-wilding North America represent sound conservation for the 21st century? Biological Conservation, 132(2), 232-238.