Pattern of extinction of the woolly mammoth in Beringia

MacDonald, Glen M.; Beilman, David W.; Kuzmin, Yaroslav V.; Орлова, Л. А.; Kremenetski, K. V.; Shapiro, Beth; Wayne, Robert K.; Valkenburgh, Blaire Van

doi:10.1038/ncomms1881

Cited by 89 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…They see synergistic effects between human hunting and climate change as the cause of mammoth extinction in arctic Siberia. In a similar vein, MacDonald et al (2012) mapped the shifting range of mammoth in Siberia after 40 cal ka BP and compared it to what is known about vegetation changes and the archaeological record. They concur with Guthrie's ideas about the importance of climate-driven changes in soils and vegetation being the proximate causes of mammoth extinction.…”

Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 99%

Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival

Mann

Groves

Kunz

et al. 2013

Quaternary Science Reviews

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Groves, Pamela; Kunz, Michael L.; Reanier, Richard E.; and Gaglioti, Benjamin V., "Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival" (2013 a b s t r a c tRadical restructuring of the terrestrial, large mammal fauna living in arctic Alaska occurred between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Steppe bison, horse, and woolly mammoth became extinct, moose and humans invaded, while muskox and caribou persisted. The ice age megafauna was more diverse in species and possibly contained 6Â more individual animals than live in the region today. Megafaunal biomass during the last ice age may have been 30Â greater than present. Horse was the dominant species in terms of number of individuals. Lions, short-faced bears, wolves, and possibly grizzly bears comprised the predator/scavenger guild. The youngest mammoth so far discovered lived ca 13,800 years ago, while horses and bison persisted on the North Slope until at least 12,500 years ago during the Younger Dryas cold interval. The first people arrived on the North Slope ca 13,500 years ago. Bone-isotope measurements and foot-loading characteristics suggest megafaunal niches were segregated along a moisture gradient, with the surviving species (muskox and caribou) utilizing the warmer and moister portions of the vegetation mosaic. As the ice age ended, the moisture gradient shifted and eliminated habitats utilized by the dryland, grazing species (bison, horse, mammoth). The proximate cause for this change was regional paludification, the spread of organic soil horizons and peat. End-Pleistocene extinctions in arctic Alaska represent local, not global extinctions since the megafaunal species lost there persisted to later times elsewhere. Hunting seems unlikely as the cause of these extinctions, but it cannot be ruled out as the final blow to megafaunal populations that were already functionally extinct by the time humans arrived in the region.

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Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 99%

Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival

Mann

Groves

Kunz

et al. 2013

Quaternary Science Reviews

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“…Unlike the extant elephantids, which live in warm tropical and subtropical habitats, woolly mammoths lived in the extreme cold of the dry steppe-tundra where average winter temperatures ranged from À30 to À50 C (MacDonald et al, 2012). Woolly mammoths evolved a suite of adaptations for arctic life, including morphological traits such as small ears and tails to minimize heat loss, a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, long thick fur, and numerous sebaceous glands for insulation (Repin et al, 2004), as well as a large brown-fat deposit behind the neck that may have functioned as a heat source and fat reservoir during winter (Boeskorov et al, 2007;Fisher et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elephantid Genomes Reveal the Molecular Bases of Woolly Mammoth Adaptations to the Arctic

et al. 2015

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Woolly mammoths and living elephants are characterized by major phenotypic differences that have allowed them to live in very different environments. To identify the genetic changes that underlie the suite of woolly mammoth adaptations to extreme cold, we sequenced the nuclear genome from three Asian elephants and two woolly mammoths, and we identified and functionally annotated genetic changes unique to woolly mammoths. We found that genes with mammoth-specific amino acid changes are enriched in functions related to circadian biology, skin and hair development and physiology, lipid metabolism, adipose development and physiology, and temperature sensation. Finally, we resurrected and functionally tested the mammoth and ancestral elephant TRPV3 gene, which encodes a temperature-sensitive transient receptor potential (thermoTRP) channel involved in thermal sensation and hair growth, and we show that a single mammoth-specific amino acid substitution in an otherwise highly conserved region of the TRPV3 channel strongly affects its temperature sensitivity.

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“…For example, frequency distributions have been used to estimate continental-scale population growth in North America (North America here means the United States and Canada, the extent of our database) over the past 15 ka using the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD) (2,3). Regional studies in North America have highlighted the impacts of environmental change on population size using these methods and documented the impact of human activities on the vegetation (1,(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). Although some studies have attempted to investigate between-region demographic changes for particular time periods (11) or map the point distribution for certain time intervals (3), the spatiotemporal distribution of demographic growth through the Holocene in North America after the arrival of humans has not been tracked at a continental scale.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal distribution of Holocene populations in North America

Chaput

Kriesche

Betts³

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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As the Cordilleran and Laurentide Ice Sheets retreated, North America was colonized by human populations; however, the spatial patterns of subsequent population growth are unclear. Temporal frequency distributions of aggregated radiocarbon (14C) dates are used as a proxy of population size and can be used to track this expansion. The Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database contains more than 35,000 14C dates and is used in this study to map the spatiotemporal demographic changes of Holocene populations in North America at a continental scale for the past 13,000 y. We use the kernel method, which converts the spatial distribution of 14C dates into estimates of population density at 500-y intervals. The resulting maps reveal temporally distinct, dynamic patterns associated with paleodemographic trends that correspond well to genetic, archaeological, and ethnohistoric evidence of human occupation. These results have implications for hypothesizing and testing migration routes into and across North America as well as the relative influence of North American populations on the evolution of the North American ecosystem.

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Pattern of extinction of the woolly mammoth in Beringia

Cited by 89 publications

References 59 publications

Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival

Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival

Elephantid Genomes Reveal the Molecular Bases of Woolly Mammoth Adaptations to the Arctic

Spatiotemporal distribution of Holocene populations in North America

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