A scientific consortium led by Dr Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr of the University of Potsdam has found that ancient El Niño-like weather patterns were the primary.
Max Planck Society
Researchers use fossil data to reveal the primary drivers and extent of colonial era extinctions
A new study published in Science Advances uses fossil and archaeological archives to demonstrate that colonial era extinctions in Guadeloupe occurred on a much more massive scale than previously thought, with more than 50% of the islands’ squamate species disappearing in the centuries after 1492
In recent years, the evidence of human impacts on Earth’s systems has caused researchers to call for recognition of a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which human activity is a major driver of climate and ecosystem change. However, despite growing evidence of the impacts of human societies, the extent of biodiversity loss in recent centuries is still poorly understood.
Max Planck Society
Researchers reconstruct the oral microbiomes of Neanderthals, primates, and humans, including the oldest oral microbiome ever sequenced from a 100,000-year-old Neanderthal, and discover unexpected clues about human evolution and health.
A new study published in PNAS compares ancient dental calculus of humans, Neanderthals, and other primates. Despite oral microbiome differences, researchers identified ten core bacterial types maintained within the human lineage for over 40 million years. The team discovered a high degree of similarity between Neanderthals and humans, including an apparent Homo-specific acquisition of starch digestion capability in oral streptococci, suggesting that the bacteria adapted to a dietary change that occurred in a common ancestor.
Max Planck Society
New research led by scientists from Griffith University and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History reveals that the arrival of Pleistocene humans and their hominin ancestors to uninhabited islands didn’t always lead to widespread extinctions, as is often thought.
Published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, the research team examined archaeological and paleontological records of all islands inhabited by humans over the last 2.6 million years, finding that hominin arrivalsoften had minimal impacts on biodiversity loss.
“We often have this picture that as soon as people arrive in a new ecosystem, they cause untold amounts of damage” says lead researcher Associate Professor Julien Louys, from the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, “but we found that this was only the case for the most recent human arrivals on islands.”
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