In Hawai’i, for example, approximately 90% of the flora is endemic at the species level and more than 762 endemic species of land snail are known (mostly as extinct taxa represented by subfossil specimens) (Ziegler, 2002). Polynesia thus offers a remarkable set of model systems for investigating the selleck products role of humans in modifying initially pristine island ecosystems, transforming these into often highly managed and human dominated landscapes. In short, the Polynesian islands are model systems for the transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene at different scales and under differing environmental parameters (Vitousek, 2002). Recognizing

the signals of initial human presence on Polynesian islands and dating these colonization events has engendered some debate. In Western Polynesia, direct evidence for Selleck ATR inhibitor human arrival in the form of sites containing Lapita pottery, has been less contentious than in Eastern Polynesia where the lack of ceramics makes identification of early settlements more problematic. For some Eastern Polynesian islands, such as Hawai’i and New Zealand, the best evidence for human arrival comes not from archeological habitation sites, but from proxy evidence such as the presence of the Polynesian

introduced Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) or sharp influxes of microscopic charcoal particles and abrupt changes in pollen frequencies in sediment cores ( Athens, 1997, Athens et al., 2002 and Wilmshurst et al., 2008) The impacts of colonizing Polynesians on island ecosystems can be heuristically divided into direct (intentional) and indirect (unintended) kinds. Among the most common direct impacts were: (1) many harvesting and predation on wild food resources, including marine turtles,

fish and shellfish, terrestrial birds, and nesting or roosting seabirds, often leading to changes in the population structures of these species, and in some cases to local extirpation or global extinction ( Steadman, 2006); (2) forest clearance for horticulture, often involving the use of fire in systems of shifting cultivation, but also burning of forests to drive game, particularly in New Zealand; (3) the purposive introduction of a suite of economic plants and domestic animals (including pig, dog, and chicken); and (4) the physical modification and manipulation of landscapes through the construction of irrigation complexes, dryland field systems, and other artificial facilities. Indirect impacts included: (1) the introduction of invasive species such as weeds, geckos, skinks, the Pacific rat (which may have been purposefully introduced for food), and ants and other insects, some of which appear to have had significant negative impacts on the indigenous and endemic biota of the islands; (2) the effects of pigs which became feral on some islands; and (3) most likely—although this requires further research—the effects of introduced disease pathogens.