Mammoth DNA suggests climate change was primary driver in extinction
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029067
Science : Mammoths and many other large mammals suffered a massive population decline between 30 000 and 20 000 years ago that eventually led to their extinction. Human expansion, and the hunting associated with it, is widely considered to be a major factor in that decline, but a new study of DNA collected from mammoth fossils suggests that the populations were shrinking well before human expansion was significant. Alan Cooper of the University of Adelaide in Australia and his colleagues established a connection between the diversity of DNA found at specific sites and the size of the species population. Creating a timeline of temperature changes from sediment cores, they found that drops in DNA diversity, and therefore overall population size, were tied to periods of significant short-term warming.