Impacts of biodiversity loss on food webs during the Upper Palaeolithic in the Cantabrian Region.

During the Upper Palaeolithic, Europe witnessed major climatic changes, the extinction of mammal species, and substantial transformations in human demography and culture. In the Cantabrian Region, a climate refuge during colder phases, human populations grew exponentially, marking the onset of resource overexploitation. By integrating cutting-edge paleoclimate reconstructions, extensive archaeo-paleontological data, ancient environmental DNA and trophic network models, FOOD-WEBS will test whether, and to what extent, the loss of biodiversity affected: a) the human carrying capacity, and b) the vulnerability of human populations to climate changes. The Evolutionary Ecology Group, led by Prof. Manica and renowned for ecological modelling, will provide training in machine learning techniques to reconstruct trophic interactions between species. In addition, training in ancient DNA metabarcoding will be acquired during a secondment in Prof. Alsos’s Ancient DNA lab. Using climate-induced biomass fluctuations, we will estimate the abundance of each species and compute, for the first time, energy fluxes along trophic links. This will enable the first quantitative assessment of human resilience to climate change and biodiversity loss in our deep past. The training and research offered by this MSCA will position me as an expert in past trophic networks and computational archaeology. FOOD-WEBS will build a new reference framework to assess the relationship between climate change, biodiversity loss, and human population dynamics in Prehistory.