Woolly mammoth extinction due to climate change

Image of a woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius. They died out because climate change caused a massive decline in their grassland habitat, scientists at Durham University, and Lund University and Bristol University report.

1. Warming temperatures and the spread of forests after the last ice age 21,000 years ago, turned the mammoths’ grassland into less productive tundra-like habitat.
2. This reduced the food available to large mammals like the woolly mammoth, woolly rhino and cave lion and eventually led to their extinction.
3. These changes coincided with an increase in the number and distribution of modern humans, Homo sapiens. A popular theory is that hunting and competition for land by humans caused the extinction of the mammoth. The changes in vegetation would have had the greatest effect.
4. The loss of food supplies from productive grasslands was the major contributing factor to the extinction of these mega-mammals.
5.The change from productive grasslands across large areas of northern Eurasia, Alaska and Yukon to less productive tundra-like habitats had a huge effect on many species, particularly on the large herbivores like the woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth. Mammoths and other mega-mammals found it increasingly difficult to find food.
6. How vegetation and climate changed in the Northern hemisphere during and after the last ice age was studied.
7. Computer simulations show what would have happened to vegetation and habitat when the climate changed. The warming of the planet and a change to a moister climate with increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulted in the proliferation of trees and the subsequent decline in grasslands – the staple diet and fodder of large herbivores. The covered areas by grassland, the grassland productivity, which is key to the survival of grazing mammals, dropped.
8. A decline in herbivores would have affected other animals in the food chain, for example there would be less food for carnivores like the cave lion.
9. This is a model for what may happen as a result of rapid climate change over the next century linked to human activity.
10. Big species such as elephants and rhinoceros are the most likely to be the first affected by climate change and habitat pressure today.
______________________________________

We Malaysian like to follow. May be this phenomenon is happening in Malaysia and this tropical region. Should we wait for Professors from England and Sweden advice us what to do? They will do it if they have the interest on our country. We just celebrate our MERDEKA DAY!.

The studies may be looked like ecological survey which is not within our panel scientists interest. We probably look for more advanced research which supporting activities towards destroying our environment and challenge our worlds status of mega biodiversity country. The extinction of mega and micro fauna may related to the vegetation changes.