Indigenous hunters have positive impacts on food webs in desert Australia

(Penn State) Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world. Resettlement of indigenous communities resulted in the spread of invasive species, the absence of human-set fires, and a general cascade in the interconnected food web that led to the largest mammalian extinction event ever recorded. In this case, the absence of direct human activity on the landscape may be the cause of the extinctions, according to a Penn State anthropologist.

from EurekAlert! - Archaeology http://bit.ly/2Gv0Dzi