It was the environmental change, and not the hominid hunters, which led to the disappearance of African...

It was the environmental change, and not the hominid hunters, which led to the disappearance of African... https://noticiasdelaciencia.com/upload/images/08_2018/2533_img_1.png?30

It was the environmental change, and not the hominid hunters, which led to the disappearance of African megaherbivores





Environmental changes led to the decline of several million years of megaherbivores (mammals of great body mass, such as elephants, rhinos and hippos) of East Africa, and not the ancestors of modern humans, as has often been noted in the past. and now rejects a new study.

 

The results suggest that the anthropogenic impact on natural systems, which continues today, is unique to modern Homo sapiens. Africa is home to many of the modern megaherbivores on Earth. However, despite this diversity, the region has witnessed a long-term decline in the diversity of these creatures.

 

For a long time, the ancient precursors of modern humans, hominids such as Homo erectus, drove ecological changes that led to the extinction and widespread changes in communities of large animals in Africa. Although they differ in detail, most rival hypotheses agree that pre-modern tool-bearing hominin hunters played a key role in altering African ecosystems and probably contributed to the disappearance of large body-size African herbivores.

 

However, although the impact of ancient humans does not have to be the only driver of these changes, according to the authors, few attempts have been made to explore other alternatives. In this study, Tyler Faith and her colleagues challenge the traditional "old-impact" hypothesis by analyzing the diversity of megaherbivores in the last seven million years in East Africa, the area with the longest and best-documented history of hominin interaction. mammal of the world, using data from current animals and fossils.

 

The analysis of Faith et al. reveals that the decline of megaherbivores began almost 4.6 million years ago: more than one million years before the first evidence of hominid meat consumers and approximately 1.8 million years before the appearance of Homo sapiens. Instead, the results suggest that this long-term decline goes hand in hand with changes in atmospheric CO2 and expansion of tropical grasslands, which probably increased competition with smaller mammals, according to the authors.

 

In a related Perspective article, René Bobe and Susana Carvalho criticize the results and argue that the role of hominins is still open to question, given the limitations of current archaeological and paleontological data. (Source: AAAS)
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