June 4 () –
Sustained hunting prevented the woolly rhino from accessing favorable habitats as the Earth warmed following the Last Ice Age, finally causing its extinction.
An international team of researchers, led by scientists from the University of Adelaide and the University of Copenhagen, used computer models to make the discovery, shedding light on a millennia-old mystery.
“Using computer models, fossils and ancient DNA, we traced 52,000 years of woolly rhino population history in Eurasia at a resolution not previously considered possible,” he said. it’s a statement lead author Associate Professor Damien Fordham of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide.
“This showed that, starting 30,000 years ago, a combination of colder temperatures and low but sustained hunting by humans caused the woolly rhino to contract its distribution southward, trapping it in a scattering of isolated and rapidly deteriorating habitats at the end of the Last Ice Age.
“As the Earth thawed and temperatures rose, woolly rhino populations were unable to colonize the important new habitats opening up in northern Eurasia, “which caused its destabilization and collapse, which caused its extinction.”
DISAPPEARED 10,000 YEARS AGO
The woolly rhino, an iconic megafauna species, had thick skin and long fur, and once roamed the Giant Pass of northern and central Eurasia before its extinction about 10,000 years ago.
This recent discovery, published in PNAS, contradicts previous research that found that humans played no role in the extinction of the woolly rhinoceros, even though the animal coexisted with humans for tens of thousands of years before its extinction.
“The demographic responses revealed by our analysis were at a much higher resolution than those captured in previous genetic studies,” said Professor Eline Lorenzen, from the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
“This allowed us to identify important interactions that woolly rhinos had with humans and document how these changed through space and time. One of these largely overlooked interactions was the persistent low intensity of hunting by humans, probably for food“.
Humans pose a similar environmental threat today. Large animal populations have been pushed into fragmented and suboptimal habitats due to overhunting and changing land use by humans.
There were 61 species of large terrestrial herbivores, weighing more than a ton, alive in the late Pleistocene, and only eight of them exist today. Five of those surviving species are rhinos.
“Our findings reveal how climate change and human activities can lead to the extinction of megafauna,” said Professor David Nogues-Bravo, from the University of Copenhagen, who was a co-author of this study.
“This understanding is crucial for developing conservation strategies to protect currently threatened species, such as vulnerable rhinos in Africa and Asia. By studying past extinctions, we can provide valuable lessons for safeguarding the Earth’s remaining large animals.”
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