Ecological dynamics of moa extinctions reveal convergent refugia that today harbour flightless birds

Abstract

Human settlement of islands across the Pacific Ocean was followed by waves of faunal extinctions that occurred so rapidly that their dynamics are difficult to reconstruct in space and time. These extinctions included large, wingless birds called moa that were endemic to New Zealand. Here we reconstructed the range and extinction dynamics of six genetically distinct species of moa across New Zealand at a fine spatiotemporal resolution, using hundreds of thousands of process-explicit simulations of climate–human–moa interactions, which were validated against inferences of occurrence and range contraction from an extensive fossil record. These process-based simulations revealed important interspecific differences in the ecological and demographic attributes of moa and established how these differences influenced likely trajectories of geographic and demographic declines of moa following Polynesian colonization of New Zealand. We show that despite these interspecific differences in extinction dynamics, the spatial patterns of geographic range collapse of moa species were probably similar. It is most likely that the final populations of all moa species persisted in suboptimal habitats in cold, mountainous areas that were generally last and least impacted by people. We find that these refugia for the last populations of moa continue to serve as isolated sanctuaries for New Zealand’s remaining flightless birds, providing fresh insights for conserving endemic species in the face of current and future threats.