Summary
| Subject keyword(s) | Biodiversity, Climate, Earth and space science, Geoscience, Global climate change, Humans and the environment, Life Science, Life science, Personal and social issues, Teacher content knowledge |
|---|---|
| Grade level | Middle School, High School, Informal Education, Vocational/Professional Development Education |
| Intended audience | Educator, Learner |
| Resource type | Audio/Visual |
| Resource format | text, text/html |
| Rights | Copyright 2005 University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute. |
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Friday, February 3, 2012 Browse Scripts by Year Search Programs Teaching Tools Time-Lapse Extinctions The mammoths and mastodons were no match for people and warm weather. By Emily Laughnan The Earth has gone through numerous ice ages, and the last of them ended about 10,000 years ago. It was followed by a mass extinction of large mammals. Some researchers say human activity and climate change created a one-two punch that wiped out the big animals. Anthony Barnosky is a paleontologist at the University of California in Berkeley. He led a team of researchers who tried to determine the causes of the extinctions at the end of the ice age. "The bottom line is that we found some parts of the world where you can fairly conclusively demonstrate that it was a climate change that led to certain species going extinct in that part of the world; other parts of the world where you can fairly conclusively demonstrate that humans had a very major role." People have long speculated that over-hunting led to the extinctions of great creatures such as mammoths, the saber-toothed cat and ground sloths. Barnosky says rapid changes in the Earth's climate -- in other words, global warming -- also put the big animals under stress. And he says human changes to the environment itself were yet another factor. Barnosky says we should pay attention to the events that happened 10,000 years ago. He says our impact on the environment today could lead to the same sort of mass extinctions. "What's going on today is humans disturbing animal habitat by indirect means more than has ever been the case in the past, plus our activities have also stimulated a climate change which is outside the rates and magnitudes of what's gone on in the past." Barnosky's research was published last October in the journal Science. Script for Monday, January 17, 2005 Additional Information: Climate change plus human pressure caused large mammal extinctions in late Pleistocene, news release from UC-Berkeley "Assessing the Causes of Late Pleistocene Extinctions on the Continents," Science, (v. 306, Issue 5693, 70-75), 1 October 2004 Barnosky lab in the Department of Integrative Biology, UC-Berkeley Barnosky profile home | scripts | search programs | contact us University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute University of Wisconsin-Madison photo credits ©Copyright 2007 University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute If you have trouble accessing this page or wish to request a reasonable accommodation because of a disability contact us.