> And then when say the Europeans got here, those animals were mostly gone ... their "biomass" just collapsed
A lot of species had long been extinct, but the biomass of the remaining ones fell.
Megafauna extinctions always follow 1. the mere arrival of humans and 2. agriculture and growth in human populations.
Places the humans did not reach until later, kept a lot more megafauna for longer - e.g. New Zealand where flourishing species such as moas became extinct within a century or two of human settlement.
Yeah I actually meant that the first extinction happened 10,000 years ago when humans first arrived on the continent! Humans arriving is what caused the biomass of animals to collapse
And then Europeans arriving basically finished the job ... that one probably affected the plants more, due to agriculture. (but also the remaining animals)
> And then when say the Europeans got here, those animals were mostly gone ... their "biomass" just collapsed
A lot of species had long been extinct, but the biomass of the remaining ones fell.
Megafauna extinctions always follow 1. the mere arrival of humans and 2. agriculture and growth in human populations.
Places the humans did not reach until later, kept a lot more megafauna for longer - e.g. New Zealand where flourishing species such as moas became extinct within a century or two of human settlement.