Turrero García, PabloMuñoz Colmenero, Ana MartaPola, I. G.Arbizu Senosiaín, MiguelGarcía Vázquez, Eva2024-01-242024-01-242012Turrero, P., et al. «Morphological, Demographic and Genetic Traces of Upper Palaeolithic Human Impact on Limpet Assemblages in North Iberia». Journal of Quaternary Science, vol. 27, n.o 3, abril de 2012, pp. 244-53. https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.1537.0267-817910.1002/jqs.1537https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/95169This study was supported by the Spanish project MICINN CGL2009-08279 and the Regional Project FICYT IB09-0023. P.T. holds a PCTI grant (reference BP08-077).Human activities have an impact on extant biotic communities, and may have had just as important an impact in the past. We assess human impact on limpet assemblages during the Upper Palaeolithic in Asturias (north-west Spain). The intensely exploited genus Patella exhibited a marked size decrease and a change in species assemblage composition, substituting the larger species P. vulgata for the smaller P. depressa. The present Patella assemblages in the upper tidal level exhibit the same pattern as those of the Epipalaeolithic (approx. 12 000 to 6000 years before the present). Although climate change may have contributed to such species replacement, spatial differences between close areas with different densities of Palaeolithic human settlements indicate unequivocal human impact. Present Patella species sampled from the region exhibit genetic signatures of past bottlenecks in mitochondrial DNA, which also indicate recent demographic expansion, suggesting that old impacts have been sufficiently important to leave genetic traces in current populations.engjournal article1099-1417https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.1537restricted access574.3AsturiasPalaeobiological human impactPalaeolithicPatella depressaPatella vulgataEcología (Biología)2409.03 Genética de Poblaciones