Sentences with word «megafaunal»
The word "megafaunal" refers to giant or huge animals that once lived on Earth. It describes creatures that were much larger than regular animals, like mammoths or saber-toothed tigers. Full definition
While understanding causes and effects of megafaunal extinctions will require a deeper knowledge of climate change and prehistoric human land use chronologies, everyone agrees that they had major impacts on plant communities.
scientificamerican.com
MacPhee also studies recent mammalian extinctions, concentrating on the loss of megafaunal species during the end - Pleistocene in North America and northern Asia.
In the early postglacial period, there are records of several megafaunal species extending their range into southern and central alberta from the south.
Second, Hancock's impact hypothesis comes from scientists who first proposed it in 2007 as an explanation for the North American megafaunal extinction around that time and has been the subject of vigorous scientific debate.
[Gifford Miller et al, Human predation contributed to the extinction of the Australian megafaunal bird Genyornis newtoni ~ 47 ka]
An amazing megafaunal menagerie roamed the region: Giant armadillos resembling armor - plated autos; bears twice the size of grizzlies; the hoofed, herbivorous toxodon, big as a rhinoceros; and saber - toothed tigers.
Megafaunal mammals have a major impact on the structure of ecosystems, so their loss could be particularly damaging.
What does megafaunal extinction mean in terms of the distribution and characteristics of existing plant communities?
«To do this, we tested a hypothesis suggested by (retired) UAF paleontologist Dale Guthrie that megafaunal populations experienced boom - and - bust cycles during the ice age as the vegetation tracked climate change.»
Elephants were once among the most widespread megafaunal families.
Man's role in the extinction of the wooly mammoth and other megafaunal species of the last ice age is smaller compared with the effects of rapid climate - warming events that occurred during the era.
Sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific Ocean: An ongoing legacy of industrial whaling?
The North American megafaunal extinction, as the event is known, was not an isolated incident.
Unlike the meteor that hastened the demise of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, the North American megafaunal extinction has not been linked to a single cataclysm.
More than 25,000 years ago, one megafaunal species — we humans — began to spread rapidly around the globe and in the process helped to wipe out about half of all land mammals weighing more than 44 kilograms.
In addition to the lack of any impact craters determined to have occurred around that time anywhere in the world, the radiocarbon dates of the layer of carbon, soot, charcoal, nanodiamonds, microspherules and iridium, asserted to have been the result of this catastrophic event, vary widely before and after the megafaunal extinction, anywhere from 14,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Against this backdrop, the events of the megafaunal extinction should stand out.
So it seems appropriate that we're now using the bones from the area to reveal the key role of climate warming, and humans, in the megafaunal extinctions,» says Dr Fabiana Martin, at the University of Magallanes.
Shermer's article is a shallow and tendentious treatment of a complex subject that does not take proper account of rebuttals to critical attacks on the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, in which a comet strike more than 12,000 years ago caused the megafaunal extinction in North America, and misrepresents the state of the argument around my theory that this event wiped out an advanced human society as well.
With the exception of Africa, megafaunal extinctions occurred globally, leaving ecologists to wonder what it means when prairies grow silent in the absence of roaring lions and thundering bison hooves.
Megafaunal extinctions have had enduring effects, simplifying ecosystems and eliminating large predators such as the dire wolf and saber - toothed tiger, large herbivores such as elephants and giant sloths, and the suite of large scavengers supported by these predator prey interactions.
Remembrance of Things Past: Megafaunal Extinctions We live in a world of losses.
«The idea that humans hunted Neanderthals to extinction as part of the megafaunal extinction is new,» said Stewart.
Its populations form more than 60 % of the megafaunal biomass at the deep continental margins of the western and central Mediterranean basins.
Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago that contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling
Broad evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, environmental history, and other disciplines suggests that direct human alteration of terrestrial ecosystems by hunting, foraging, land clearing, agriculture, and other activities has been profound in some regions at least since the late Pleistocene, with long - term impacts from forest clearing, increased fire frequencies, megafaunal extinctions, species invasions, soil erosion, and others (13, 14).