Human hunting has wiped out many megahervibores

Madrid. Many of the species of megaherbivores that have disappeared in the last 50,000 years were hunted to extinction by humans, concludes a group of researchers from the Centre for Ecological Dynamics in a New Biosphere (Econovo) at Aarhus University. This is a review of scientific exploration in this field, published in the journal Cambridge Prisms: Extinction.

The analysis initially includes animals weighing at least 45 kilograms, known as megafauna. Some 161 species of mammals became extinct during this period. The figure is based on the remains found so far.

The worst affected were the largest: the terrestrial megaherbivores that weighed more than a ton. 50,000 years ago, there were 57 species. Today only 11 remain, and their populations have also suffered drastic declines.

The researchers incorporated several fields of analysis, including studies directly related to the disappearance of large animals, as well as the timing of species extinction, dietary preferences, climatic and habitat requirements, genetic estimates of past population sizes, and evidence of hunting, among others.

The dramatic climatic changes during the last interglacial and glacial periods certainly affected the populations and distributions of large and small animals and plants worldwide. However, significant extinctions were observed only among the large ones, particularly the largest ones.

Climate change

An important observation is that the previous ice ages and the equally dramatic interglacial periods of the last two million years did not lead to a selective loss of megafauna. Especially at the beginning of the glacial periods, the new cold and dry conditions caused large-scale extinction of some regions, such as that of trees in Europe. However, there were no selective extinctions of large animals.

The large and highly selective loss of megafauna over the past 50,000 years is unique in the past 66 million years. Previous periods of climate change did not trigger large selective extinctions, contradicting the primary role of climate in megafauna extinctions.says Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, director of Econovo and lead author of the paper.

Traps designed for very large animals have been found, and isotope analyses of ancient human bones and protein residues from spear points show that they hunted and ate the largest mammals.

Svenning adds: Early modern humans were effective hunters of even the largest animal species and clearly had the ability to reduce populations of large animals, which were and are particularly vulnerable to overexploitation because they have long gestation periods, produce very few offspring at a time, and take many years to reach sexual maturity..