2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
A study on terrestrial vertebrate extinctions in the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene of the Ryukyu Archipelago, southwestern Japan
| Project/Area Number |
15K07202
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Biodiversity/Systematics
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| Research Institution | Okayama University of Science |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
太田 英利 兵庫県立大学, 自然・環境科学研究所, 教授 (10201972)
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| Research Collaborator |
IKEDA Tadahiro
KATO Takafumi
NAKANISHI Nozomi
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| Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
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| Keywords | 種の豊富さ / カメ類 / 絶滅 / 個体群消滅 / 歴史生物地理 / 後期更新世 / 琉球列島 / 大陸島 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
In the present study, we conducted taxonomic evaluations on the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene skeletal remains from the Ryukyus to understand faunal changes in the past. In addition, we searched for new materials on several small islands from which the skeletal remains have hardly been found to verify the current paleogeographic hypothesis of this area. The results indicated that most islands of the Ryukyus, including those characterized by occurrences of a small number of species as well as poor landscape, had harbored much richer vertebrate fauna but a part of the animals went extinct by latest Pleistocene. The Late Pleistocene vertebrate fauna including several extinct species are largely congruent with the current hypothesis. Remarkable decrease of the skeletal remains above hominid bone beds in the Minatogawa Man site on Okinawajima Island implies that the extinctions of terrestrial vertebrates are more or less attributed to spread of the Paleolithic people to the Ryukyus.
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| Free Research Field |
動物系統分類学
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