James Hansford

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• PhD
• Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London

Abstract Continued uncertainty persists over the taxonomic status of many threatened Caribbean mammal populations. Recent molecular analysis has identified three genetically isolated allopatric hutia populations on Hispaniola that diverged during the Middle Pleistocene, with observed levels of sequence divergence interpreted as representing subspec...

Understanding the dynamics of the Late Quaternary Caribbean mammal extinction event is complicated by continuing uncertainty over the taxonomic status of many species. Hispaniola is one of the few Caribbean islands to retain native non-volant mammals; however, there has been little consensus over past or present levels of diversity in Hispaniolan h...

Aim To determine the evolutionary history, relationships and distinctiveness of allopatric populations of Hispaniolan solenodon ( Solenodon paradoxus ), a highly threatened Caribbean ‘relict’ mammal, to understand spatio‐temporal patterns of gene flow and the distribution of diversity across complex large island landscapes and inform spatial conser...

Biological communities are changing rapidly in response to human activities, with the high rate of vertebrate species extinction leading many to propose that we are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event. Five past mass extinction events have most commonly been emphasised across the Phanerozoic, with the last occurring at the end of the Cret...

Robust species-level methods for quantifying ecological differences have yet to be incorporated into conservation strategies. Here, we describe a new approach to measure the unique contribution of species to overall functional diversity and incorporate it into an actionable conservation metric. The Functionally Distinct and Globally Endangered (FuD...

The systematics of Madagascar’s extinct elephant birds remains controversial due to large gaps in the fossil record and poor biomolecular preservation of skeletal specimens. Here, a molecular analysis of 1000-year-old fossil eggshells provides the first description of elephant bird phylogeography and offers insight into the ecology and evolution of...

This talk will describe the work of the CPN Pre-Impact Baselines Working Group to leverage the wealth of paleoecological and historical ecological data to facilitate estimation of pre-impact species distribution baselines. Species conservation has long focused on preventing human-driven extinctions, and over the past 50 years conservation success h...

Species distribution modelling is a widely applied tool for forecasting future distributions of species under different climatic scenarios, informing conservation strategies and rewilding programs. Forecasting, however, is typically based on very recent species’ records (last ~50 years). This is problematic, given that these records are strongly af...

Megafauna play a disproportionate role in developing and maintaining their biomes, by regulating plant dispersal, community structure and nutrient cycling. Understanding the ecological roles of extinct megafaunal communities, for example through dietary reconstruction using isotope analysis, is necessary to determine pre-human states and set eviden...

Madagascar experienced a major faunal turnover near the end of the first millenium CE that particularly affected terrestrial, large-bodied vertebrate species. Teasing apart the relative impacts of people and climate on this event requires a focus on regional records with good chronological control. These records may document coeval changes in rainf...

Reconstructing the dynamics and drivers of late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions requires direct radiometric date series that are assessed within probabilistic statistical frameworks. Extinction chronologies are poorly understood for many tropical regions, including Madagascar, which had a diverse, now-extinct Holocene large vertebrate fauna inclu...

Extracting species calls from passive acoustic recordings is a common preliminary step to ecological analysis. For many species, particularly those occupying noisy, acoustically variable habitats, the call extraction process continues to be largely manual, a time‐consuming and increasingly unsustainable process. Deep neural networks have been shown...

This correction is to fulfil the requirements of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) article 8.5.3 [1] for the publication of new taxonomic names. In order for the genus Vorombe to be an available nomen, this name needed to be registered in ZooBank at the time of publication, with the ZooBank number appearing with the pub...

One of the most striking human impacts on global biodiversity is the ongoing depletion of large vertebrates from terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Recent work suggests this loss of megafauna can affect processes at biome or Earth system scales with potentially serious impacts on ecosystem structure and function, ecosystem services, and biogeochem...

Long-term baselines on biodiversity change through time are crucial to inform conservation decision-making in biodiversity hotspots, but environmental archives remain unavailable for many regions. Extensive palaeontological, zooarchaeological and historical records and indigenous knowledge about past environmental conditions exist for China, a mega...

Madagascar's now-extinct radiation of large-bodied ratites, the elephant birds (Aepyornithidae), has been subject to little modern research compared to the island's mammalian megafauna and other Late Quaternary giant birds. The family's convoluted and conflicting taxonomic history has hindered accurate interpretation of morphological diversity and...

TABLE S1. AEPYORNITHID LIMB BONE SPECIMENS AND MEASUREMENTS INCLUDED IN MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Previous research suggests that people first arrived on Madagascar by ~2500 years before present (years B.P.). This hypothesis is consistent with butchery marks on extinct lemur bones from ~2400 years B.P. and perhaps with archaeological evidence of human presence from ~4000 years B.P. We report >10,500-year-old human-modified bones for the extinct...

The noblewoman's ape Human activities are causing extinctions across a wide array of taxa. Yet there has been no evidence of humans directly causing extinction among our relatives, the apes. Turvey et al. describe a species of gibbon found in a 2200- to 2300-year-old tomb ascribed to a Chinese noblewoman. This previously unknown species was likely...

Historical patterns of diversity, biogeography and faunal turnover remain poorly understood for Wallacea, the biologically and geologically complex island region between the Asian and Australian continental shelves. A distinctive Quaternary vertebrate fauna containing the small-bodied hominin Homo floresiensis, pygmy Stegodon proboscideans, varanid...

Text S1; Text S2; Text S3; Table S1; Table S2; Table S3; Table S4; Table S5 and Table S6

Insular giant tortoise diversity has been depleted by Late Quaternary extinctions, but the taxonomic status of many extinct populations remains poorly understood due to limited available fossil or subfossil material, hindering our ability to reconstruct Quaternary island biotas and environments. Giant tortoises are absent from current-day insular C...

Aim To clarify the post‐glacial biogeography of the Annamite and eastern Chinese ungulate faunas, and determine whether current understanding of Asian mammalian biogeography is biased by pseudo‐extinctions and pseudo‐endemism associated with a historical extinction filter. Location Modern‐day specimens of giant muntjac ( Muntiacus vuquangensis ) f...