A new study on the ancient woolly mammoths found strong evidence that opposes the initial theories on the animals' extinction. Based on the previous findings, the disappearance of Mammuthus primigenius was triggered by natural causes such as the drastic change of the climate and the decrease of food production in their habitats. But contrary to the past investigations, the woolly mammoths were pushed to extinction through a large factor by human-induced activities.
Disappearance of Woolly Mammoths
The new evidence behind the vanishing of the gigantic woolly mammoths was led by the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute and the School of Biological Sciences; and the University of Copenhagen Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate expert Damien Fordham. According to the expert, their team found that humans are crucial to the dynamics of the presence of the woolly mammoths in ancient history.
The primitive activities they had inflicted a great impact on the decrease of the number of species. As chronic drivers of the woolly mammoth's population, humans, unfortunately, served an essential role in the extinction of woolly mammoths.
The study was made possible through a computerized model that the authors developed. The simulated figures were constructed from the data gathered in ancient DNAs. Through the model, the experts were able to harness detailed mechanisms and various threats that initiated the drop of the animals' number, and eventually, their elimination from the planet's biodiversity.
The fossil records and extracted DNAs revealed in the examination that within only 4,000 years or more, the population of mammoths collapsed rapidly. The researchers learned that signatures of past changes in the distribution and demography of woolly mammoths identified from fossils and ancient DNA proves that humans speed up the extinction of the ancient creatures.
Fordham said in a SciNews report that humans exploited woolly mammoths by using their bones, meat, skin, and the ivory from their tusks.
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Human-Induced Activities Played a Significant Factor In Woolly Mammoth Extinction
University of Adelaide expert and co-author of the study Jeremy Austin said that the data the team collected were products of long-term analysis from some regions in Eurasia. From the DNA results, it was confirmed that woolly mammoths still roamed 5,000 years ago across the areas of Siberia.
The study could serve as the most comprehensive presentation about the human-driven impacts that were previously denied in separate investigations. It also contradicts the recent study that presented climate change as the reason for the extinction of the woolly mammoth. Another angle that the experts contrasted in the study was that the disappearance of the mammoths is caused by the complex interactions between the animals themselves.
But alongside the dynamics between the humans and the mammoths, the authors said the evolutionary pathway of the Mammuthus primigenius was already fated millennia before the massive disappearance and eventually, the final extinction event of the species. The study titled "Process-explicit models reveal pathway to extinction for woolly mammoth using pattern-oriented validation" was published in the journal Ecology Letters.
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