Investigating the consequences of Late Pleistocene humans and carnivores interactions from Great Britain

• Grant number: 23/15709-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: April 01, 2024
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Mathias Mistretta Pires
• Grantee: Pedro Danel de Souza Ugarte
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/04833-4 - Investigating the impact of humans on the feasibility of mammalian interaction networks across the globe, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Human presence is intrinsically associated with changes in the dynamics of local biodiversity, and their influence has intensified from the end of the Pleistocene, marked by extinction events of large mammals. In Europe, during this period, more than one species of hominids coexisted, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens, and studies analyzing the effects of more than one human species on mammals are still scarce. Understanding how different hominids, jointly with climate change, influenced processes that led to the extinction of megafauna can help us understand the current biodiversity crisis. In this project, I intend to take advantage of the abundance of data regarding mammal communities in Great Britain during the late Pleistocene. I plan to understand better the direct and indirect effects of human presence on the diet and phenotypic evolution of carnivorous mammals. This archipelago had a unique human occupation with repeated events of human colonization that allow us to analyze different effects on the invaded ecosystems. To do this, I will estimate interaction patterns between species, reconstruct trophic networks including humans at different periods and analyze temporal variation in the structure of interaction networks. I also intend to examine the "interaction space" and functional space at each moment of the human occupation, in addition to testing the associations of observed changes with human presence or climate. With this project, I plan to characterize the direct and indirect effects of climate change and human presence on the mammalian fauna of the past to understand their effects on organisms over time better.