@misc{10481/98711,
year = {2024},
month = {5},
url = {https://hdl.handle.net/10481/98711},
abstract = {1. Modern humans widely shaped present ecosystems through intentional and
unintentional geographical redistribution of wildlife, both in historical and pre-historical
times. However, the patterns of ancient human-mediated
indirect
changes in wildlife range are largely unknown, and the mechanisms behind them
remain obscure.
2. We used a multidisciplinary approach to (a) reconstruct the process of colonization
of the Mediterranean Basin by a long-lived
bird of prey, the Bonelli's eagle
(Aquila fasciata), and (b) test the hypothesis that this colonization was unintentionally
favoured by anatomically modern humans through a release of competition
by dominant species, primarily golden eagles (A. chrysaetos).
3. The fossil record of Bonelli's eagles in the Mediterranean Basin was restricted to
the last c. 50 ky. This timing matches the period of modern human presence in
Europe. Distribution modelling showed that Bonelli's eagles find more suitable
conditions in interglacial periods, while glacial maxima are largely unfavourable
unless in coastal refugia. In agreement with this, all Bonelli's eagle's fossils were
found in coastal areas, and demographic inference from genetic data revealed a
drop in the effective population size by around the last glacial maximum.
4. In today's communities, we found a strongly asymmetric competitive relationship
between (subordinate) Bonelli's and (dominant) golden eagles, with the former occupying far more humanized areas than the latter both at the landscape scale
and the local (i.e. nesting cliff) scale. Moreover, the nesting habitat overlap analysis
indicated that, in the absence of the other species, a notably higher population
of Bonelli's eagle, but not of golden eagle, could be expected.
5. Our findings are consistent with the human-mediated
competitor release
hypothesis, by which anatomically modern humans could have unintentionally
favoured the large-scale
colonization by Bonelli's eagles of a previously
competitively hostile Mediterranean Basin. Reconstructing the role of ancient
humans in shaping present ecosystems may help to understand the historical,
current and future population trajectories of competing species of conservation
concern under the ongoing scenario of global environmental change. It also
illustrates how human-mediated
apparent competition may promote large-scale
redistribution and colonization of wildlife, including long-lived
species.},
organization = {Spanish Ministry of Science and
Innovation and EU ERDF Funds, Grant/
Award Number: PGC2018-093925-
B-
C33
and PID2019-105682RA-
I00},
organization = {Ministerio
de Economía y Competitividad, Grant/
Award Number: RYC-2015-
19231},
organization = {Portuguese Foundation for Science
and Technology, Grant/Award Number:
2021.00647.CEECIND},
organization = {Severo Ochoa
Program for Centres of Excellence in
R+D+I, Grant/Award Number: SEV-2012-
0262},
organization = {Spanish Ministry of Economy
and Competitiveness and EU ERDF Funds,
Grant/Award Number: CGL2012-40013-
C02-
01/
02 and CGL2013-41565-
P},
publisher = {Wiley Online Library},
keywords = {apparent competition},
keywords = {Aquila chrysaetos},
keywords = {Aquila fasciata},
title = {Wildlife following people: A multidisciplinary assessment of the ancient colonization of the Mediterranean Basin by a long-lived raptor},
doi = {10.1002/pan3.10642},
author = {Moleón, Marcos and Graciá, Eva and García, Nuria and Gil Sánchez, José María and Godinho, Raquel and Beja, Pedro and Palma, Luís and Real, Joan and Hernández Matías, Antonio and Román Muñoz, Antonio and Arrondo, Eneko and Sánchez Zapata, José Antonio},
}