Cultural evolution caused broad-scale historical declines of large mammals across China

(Aarhus University) Researchers from Aarhus University and Nanjing University have shown that cultural evolution overshadowed climate change in driving historical broad-scale megafauna dynamics across China. By mining Chinese administrative records for data on species distributions and land use alongside climate data from 2 to 1953 CE, the researchers identified the millennia-long spread of agriculture and agricultural intensification as the main cause of the extirpation of the Asiatic elephant, Asian rhinoceroses, tiger, Asiatic black bear, and brown bear.
Source: EurekAlert! - Social and Behavioral Science - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: news