Note on the origin of the present mammalian fauna from the Balearic and Pityusics islands

Abstract

Given the present state of palaeontological knowledge today’s mammalogical fauna of the Balearic and Pitysic Islands can be considered as coming from a recent colonization resulting from the activity, voluntary or not, of man. In this paper the number of mammalian species are considered in tems of the theory of island biogeography. The human activity would have brought about a deterministic renew ai of the island’s mammalogicai fauna, with a noticeable increase of the number of species and with the substitution of some stenocorous species, subjected to K selection during many years, by euricorous species, which are typicai r strategists.