Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
The famed ancient herb, known to the Romans as silphium (Greeksilphion), is widely regarded as the first recorded instance of human-induced species extinction. Modern scholars have largely credited direct exploitation (e.g., over-harvesting; over-grazing) as the primary cause of silphium's extinction, due to an overwhelming demand for the plant in ancient times. Recent research has revealed strict cold-stratification requirements for the germination of silphium's closest living relatives, revealing the likelihood that silphium shared these same germination requirements. Documented environmental changes in ancient Cyrenaica (e.g., widespread deforestation; cropland expansion) likely resulted in accelerated rates of desertification throughout the region as well as the direct disturbance of silphium's habitat, effectively eliminating the necessary conditions for silphium's successful germination and growth within its native range. Contrary to previous conclusions, this evidence suggests that anthropogenic environmental change was instead the dominant factor in silphium's extinction, marking silphium as the first recorded instance of human-induced climate-based extinction.
Department
Open Access Fund; Agriculture, Nutrition, and Food Systems
Publication Date
1-24-2022
Journal Title
Frontiers in Conservation Science
Publisher
Frontiers
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Pollaro, P., & Robertson, P. (2022). Reassessing the Role of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the Extinction of Silphium. Frontiers in Conservation Science, 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2021.785962
Rights
Copyright © 2022 Pollaro and Robertson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.
Comments
This is an Open Access article published by Frontiers in Frontiers in Conservation Science, available online: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2021.785962