The extinction of the woolly mammoth: was it a quick freeze?

Complete Genomes Reveal Signatures of Demographic and Genetic Declines in the Woolly Mammoth

The processes leading up to species extinctions are typically characterized by prolonged declines in population size and geographic distribution, followed by a phase in which populations are very small and may be subject to intrinsic threats, including loss of genetic diversity and inbreeding. However, whether such genetic factors have had an impact on species prior to their extinction is uncle...

Genomic Analysis of the Process Leading up to the Extinction of the Woolly Mammoth

Climate Change, Humans, and the Extinction of the Woolly Mammoth

Woolly mammoths inhabited Eurasia and North America from late Middle Pleistocene (300 ky BP [300,000 years before present]), surviving through different climatic cycles until they vanished in the Holocene (3.6 ky BP). The debate about why the Late Quaternary extinctions occurred has centred upon environmental and human-induced effects, or a combination of both. However, testing these two hypoth...

Pattern of extinction of the woolly mammoth in Beringia

Extinction of the woolly mammoth in Beringia has long been subject to research and speculation. Here we use a new geo-referenced database of radiocarbon-dated evidence to show that mammoths were abundant in the open-habitat of Marine Isotope Stage 3 (∼45-30 ka). During the Last Glacial Maximum (∼25-20 ka), northern populations declined while those in interior Siberia increased. Northern mammoth...

Extinction and Survival

When we hear the word extinction, most of us immediately think of dinosaurs and woolly mammoths and cataclysmic events precipitating their extinction. Some of us are also aware of current extinction threats and recent extinctions, but few, if any, of us understand the varying and complex circumstances under which extinction actually happens. It turns out that extinction and species survival are...