Climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth
8 pages, 4 figures.-- PMID: 18384234 [PubMed].-- PMCID: PMC2276529.-- Supplementary information (Dataset S1, Figures S1-S6, Protocol S1 and Tables S1-S3) available. Woolly mammoths inhabited Eurasia and North America from late Middle Pleistocene (300 ky BP [300,000 years before present]), surviving...
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ftcsic:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/9824 2024-02-11T10:01:42+01:00 Climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth Nogués-Bravo, David Rodríguez, Jesús Hortal, Joaquín Batra, Persaram Araújo, Miguel B. 2008-04-01 971250 bytes application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10261/9824 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060079 en eng Public Library of Science Publisher’s version http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060079 PLoS Biology 6(4): e79 1544-9173 http://hdl.handle.net/10261/9824 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060079 1545-7885 18384234 open artículo http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501 2008 ftcsic https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060079 2024-01-16T09:21:27Z 8 pages, 4 figures.-- PMID: 18384234 [PubMed].-- PMCID: PMC2276529.-- Supplementary information (Dataset S1, Figures S1-S6, Protocol S1 and Tables S1-S3) available. Woolly mammoths inhabited Eurasia and North America from late Middle Pleistocene (300 ky BP [300,000 years before present]), surviving through different climatic cycles until they vanished in the Holocene (3.6 ky BP). The debate about why the Late Quaternary extinctions occurred has centred upon environmental and human-induced effects, or a combination of both. However, testing these two hypotheses—climatic and anthropogenic—has been hampered by the difficulty of generating quantitative estimates of the relationship between the contraction of the mammoth's geographical range and each of the two hypotheses. We combined climate envelope models and a population model with explicit treatment of woolly mammoth–human interactions to measure the extent to which a combination of climate changes and increased human pressures might have led to the extinction of the species in Eurasia. Climate conditions for woolly mammoths were measured across different time periods: 126 ky BP, 42 ky BP, 30 ky BP, 21 ky BP, and 6 ky BP. We show that suitable climate conditions for the mammoth reduced drastically between the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene, and 90% of its geographical range disappeared between 42 ky BP and 6 ky BP, with the remaining suitable areas in the mid-Holocene being mainly restricted to Arctic Siberia, which is where the latest records of woolly mammoths in continental Asia have been found. Results of the population models also show that the collapse of the climatic niche of the mammoth caused a significant drop in their population size, making woolly mammoths more vulnerable to the increasing hunting pressure from human populations. The coincidence of the disappearance of climatically suitable areas for woolly mammoths and the increase in anthropogenic impacts in the Holocene, the coup de grâce, likely set the place and time for the extinction of ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change Siberia Digital.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) Arctic PLoS Biology 6 4 e79 |
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8 pages, 4 figures.-- PMID: 18384234 [PubMed].-- PMCID: PMC2276529.-- Supplementary information (Dataset S1, Figures S1-S6, Protocol S1 and Tables S1-S3) available. Woolly mammoths inhabited Eurasia and North America from late Middle Pleistocene (300 ky BP [300,000 years before present]), surviving through different climatic cycles until they vanished in the Holocene (3.6 ky BP). The debate about why the Late Quaternary extinctions occurred has centred upon environmental and human-induced effects, or a combination of both. However, testing these two hypotheses—climatic and anthropogenic—has been hampered by the difficulty of generating quantitative estimates of the relationship between the contraction of the mammoth's geographical range and each of the two hypotheses. We combined climate envelope models and a population model with explicit treatment of woolly mammoth–human interactions to measure the extent to which a combination of climate changes and increased human pressures might have led to the extinction of the species in Eurasia. Climate conditions for woolly mammoths were measured across different time periods: 126 ky BP, 42 ky BP, 30 ky BP, 21 ky BP, and 6 ky BP. We show that suitable climate conditions for the mammoth reduced drastically between the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene, and 90% of its geographical range disappeared between 42 ky BP and 6 ky BP, with the remaining suitable areas in the mid-Holocene being mainly restricted to Arctic Siberia, which is where the latest records of woolly mammoths in continental Asia have been found. Results of the population models also show that the collapse of the climatic niche of the mammoth caused a significant drop in their population size, making woolly mammoths more vulnerable to the increasing hunting pressure from human populations. The coincidence of the disappearance of climatically suitable areas for woolly mammoths and the increase in anthropogenic impacts in the Holocene, the coup de grâce, likely set the place and time for the extinction of ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Nogués-Bravo, David Rodríguez, Jesús Hortal, Joaquín Batra, Persaram Araújo, Miguel B. |
spellingShingle |
Nogués-Bravo, David Rodríguez, Jesús Hortal, Joaquín Batra, Persaram Araújo, Miguel B. Climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth |
author_facet |
Nogués-Bravo, David Rodríguez, Jesús Hortal, Joaquín Batra, Persaram Araújo, Miguel B. |
author_sort |
Nogués-Bravo, David |
title |
Climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth |
title_short |
Climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth |
title_full |
Climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth |
title_fullStr |
Climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth |
title_full_unstemmed |
Climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth |
title_sort |
climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2008 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/9824 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060079 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Siberia |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Siberia |
op_relation |
Publisher’s version http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060079 PLoS Biology 6(4): e79 1544-9173 http://hdl.handle.net/10261/9824 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060079 1545-7885 18384234 |
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op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060079 |
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PLoS Biology |
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6 |
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