The AnthropoZoocene: invasions, extinctions and new landscapes

Coordinator: Débora Zurro (IMF-CSIC)

Discussions and debates on the Anthropocene tend to revolve around agricultural activities and deforestation practices and all the modifications these entail, and particularly aspects related to the plant kingdom and the geomorphology of landscapes.

While this is clearly one of the main impacts on the planet, with enormous consequences, the animal kingdom also participates in these dynamics, forming part of this profoundly changed environment and, in turn, changing it themselves.

Thus, the changes in biodiversity and animal biomass caused by human activity have also profoundly impacted numerous ecosystems over the course of millennia. We will be discussing this issue of the AnthropoZOOcene, examining aspects ranging from extinctions to the other side of the Atlantic, presumably associated with the settlement of America, the intensification of the consumption of ocean resources, the domestication of numerous species, the extension of farming practices and the emergence of synanthropic species, before coming to what is today considered to be the sixth great extinction.