A recent study suggests that cultural diversity has a positive effect on the biodiversity of ecosystems, and the homogenization of human life forms may contribute to major extinction events.
Through the ages, the presence of humans has increased the heterogeneity and complexity of ecosystems and has often had a positive effect on their biodiversity.
In their publication, the scientists examine the role of past humans in the evolution and control of biodiversity on our planet. The archaeologists offer a deep-time perspective grounded in material and ecological data to argue that the idea that humans had lived harmoniously with nature as hunter-gatherers mischaracterizes the fundamental problem of human interaction with ecosystems.
The research combines various case studies from the Late Pleistocene and is also based on a recent study of the two authors on ravens from the ice age, which shows that these birds benefited from humans as neighbours about 30,000 years ago -- especially from food options that hunter-gatherers in the environment provided for these animals.
"Ultimately, we try to argue that biodiversity regimes cannot be separated from human influence and that not all of these influences are merely negative," explained Shumon Hussain."It also follows that increased diversity in human life forms probably has an overall positive effect on biodiversity as a whole, and that a decisive driver of the biodiversity crisis in the Anthropocene is in part also the homogenization of human life in nature and with it.
Cultural Diversity Biodiversity Ecosystems Extinction Events Human Impact
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