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Chapter 19 - Reticulate Evolution Through Turbulent Times

from Part IV - Evolutionary Transitions: From Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2021

Norman Owen-Smith
Norman Owen-Smith
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
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Summary

This chapter looks ahead to the prospects for conserving Africa’s large mammal diversity in an increasingly crowded world. These animals played an integral role in our evolution and our continuing fascination with them drives eco-tourism industries. Attempts to rewild the continents that lost most of their large mammas are misdirected. Those retained in Africa should be conserved to benefit us both spiritually and materially.

Keywords

conserving wildlifeecotourismrewildingrural upliftmentspiritual values
Type
Chapter
Information
Only in Africa
The Ecology of Human Evolution
 , pp. 329 - 339
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Suggested Further Reading

Potts, R. (2012) Environmental and behavioural evidence pertaining to the evolution of early Homo. Current Anthropology 53(Suppl. 6):S299–S317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scerri, EML., et al. (2018) Did our species evolve in subdivided populations across Africa, and why does it matter? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 33:582–592.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stringer, C. (2016) The origin and evolution of Homo sapiens. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371:20150237Google Scholar

References

Wood, BK; Boyle, E. (2016) Hominin taxic diversity: fact or fantasy? American Journal of Physical Anthropology 159:37–78.Google Scholar
Bobe, R; Carvalho, S. (2019) Hominin diversity and high environmental variability in the Okote Member, Koobi Fora Formation, Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution 126:91–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stringer, C. (2016) The origin and evolution of Homo sapiens. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371:20150237.Google Scholar
Klein, RG. (2019) Population structure and the evolution of Homo sapiens in Africa. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 28:179–188.Google Scholar
Scerri, EML, et al. (2018) Did our species evolve in subdivided populations across Africa, and why does it matter? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 33:582–594.Google Scholar
Arnold, ML. (2009) Reticulate Evolution and Humans: Origins and Ecology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Winder, IC; Winder, NP. (2014) Reticulate evolution and the human past: an anthropological perspective. Annals of Human Biology 41:300–311.Google Scholar
Wood, B. (2010) Reconstructing human evolution: achievements, challenges, and opportunities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107:8902–8909.Google Scholar
Fischer, J, et al. (2019) The natural history of model organisms: insights into the evolution of social systems and species from baboon studies. Elife 8:e50989.Google Scholar
Potts, R. (1998) Environmental hypotheses of hominin evolution. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists 107:93–136.Google Scholar
Potts, R. (2013) Hominin evolution in settings of strong environmental variability. Quaternary Science Reviews 73:1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogutu, JO; Owen‐Smith, N. (2003) ENSO, rainfall and temperature influences on extreme population declines among African savanna ungulates. Ecology Letters 6:412–419.Google Scholar
Reznick, DN, et al. (2019) From low to high gear: there has been a paradigm shift in our understanding of evolution. Ecology Letters 22:233–244.Google Scholar
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Dublin, HT; Ogutu, JO. (2015) Population regulation of African buffalo in the Mara–Serengeti ecosystem. Wildlife Research 42:382–393.Google Scholar
Smit, IPJ; Bond, WJ. (2020) Observations on the natural history of a savanna drought. African Journal of Range & Forage Science 37:119–136.Google Scholar
Spinage, CA; Matlhare, JM. (1992) Is the Kalahari cornucopia fact or fiction? A predictive model. Journal of Applied Ecology 29:605–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, BH, et al. (1987) To cull or not to cull: lessons from a southern African drought. Journal of Applied Ecology 24:381–401.Google Scholar
Owen-Smith, RN. (2002) Adaptive Herbivore Ecology: From Resources to Populations in Variable Environments. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gani, MR; Gani, NDS. (2008) Tectonic hypotheses of human evolution. Geotimes 53:34–39.Google Scholar
Owen‐Smith, N. (2013) Contrasts in the large herbivore faunas of the southern continents in the late Pleistocene and the ecological implications for human origins. Journal of Biogeography 40:1215–1224.Google Scholar

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