The Lesser Antilles is a string of islands stretching from Grenada in the south to Sombrero in the north, which was once home to at least 20 insular populations of native rodents scattered across the different islands. Despite their relative ubiquity on the archipelago, these now extinct rodents remain poorly understood. In Guadeloupe (Basse-Terre and Grande-Terre), Marie-Galante, Barbuda and Antigua, fossil specimens of a large Lesser Antillean native rodent have recently been described as a distinct species, Antillomys rayi Brace et al. 2015. In order to shed new light on the processes leading to the extinction of this species, we use stable carbon and oxygen isotopes to better constrain its ecology, along with a series of radiocarbon dates to narrow its last-occurrence date in Guadeloupe and Marie-Galante. First, we built a reference collection of present-day isotopic data based on carbon and oxygen isotopes from black rats captured in different natural environmental contexts of Guadeloupe. Here, we show A. rayi to have occupied multiple distinct environments ranging from semi-deciduous dry forest to seasonal evergreen or mountain forests. New direct radiocarbon dates obtained on fossil material considerably bring forward the last occurrence of A. rayi in Guadeloupe and Marie-Galante, making it roughly coincident with European contact. However, our new calibrated age intervals place the last occurrence of A. rayi no later than the 16th century AD. Taken together, our results suggest that A. rayi became exceedingly rare, if not extirpated, in Guadeloupe and Marie-Galante shortly after European contact. While the overexploitation of A. rayi by Amerindian populations and the deforestation by European colonists could have impacted A. rayi populations, the consequences (biological competition, disease) of the introduction of black rat most likely explains the early decline of A. rayi and its ultimate extirpation from the islands of Guadeloupe.

中文翻译：

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已灭绝的小安的列斯本土啮齿动物 Antillomys rayi Brace 等人的同位素生态学和灭绝年表。(2015)

小安的列斯群岛是一连串岛屿，从南部的格林纳达一直延伸到北部的阔边帽，这里曾经是至少 20 只分散在不同岛屿上的本土啮齿动物的岛屿。尽管它们在群岛上相对普遍，但这些现已灭绝的啮齿动物仍然知之甚少。在瓜德罗普岛（Basse-Terre 和 Grande-Terre）、Marie-Galante、巴布达和安提瓜，一种大型小安的列斯本土啮齿动物的化石标本最近被描述为一个独特的物种，Antillomys rayi Brace 等。2015. 为了揭示导致该物种灭绝的过程，我们使用稳定的碳和氧同位素来更好地限制其生态，并使用一系列放射性碳日期来缩小其在瓜德罗普岛和玛丽的最后出现日期-加兰特。第一的，我们根据在瓜德罗普岛不同自然环境中捕获的黑鼠的碳和氧同位素建立了当今同位素数据的参考集合。在这里，我们展示了 A. rayi 占据了多种不同的环境，从半落叶干燥森林到季节性常绿或山地森林。在化石材料上获得的新的直接放射性碳日期大大提前了 A. rayi 在瓜德罗普岛和玛丽-加兰特的最后一次出现，使其与欧洲的接触大致一致。然而，我们新校准的年龄间隔将 A. rayi 的最后一次出现时间设置为不迟于公元 16 世纪。综上所述，我们的结果表明，在与欧洲人接触后不久，A. rayi 在瓜德罗普岛和玛丽-加兰特岛变得极为罕见，即使没有灭绝。虽然过度开发 A.