Posted on 11/19/2009 6:16:45 PM PST by decimon
The last breaths of mammoths and mastodons some 13,000 years ago have garnered plenty of research and just as much debate. What killed these large beasts in a relative instant of geologic time?
A question asked less often: What happened when they disappeared?
A new study, based partly on dung fungus, provides some answers to both questions. The upshot: The landscape changed dramatically.
"As soon as herbivores drop off the landscape, we see different plant communities," said lead researcher Jacquelyn Gill of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, adding the result was an "ecosystem upheaval."
Gill and her colleagues found that once emptied of a diversity of large animals equaling or surpassing that of Africa's Serengeti, the landscape completely changed. Trees once kept in check by the mammoth gang popped up and so did wildfires sparked by the woody debris.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I gather it never occurred to these “academics” to investigate the possibility that the event(s) that caused the megafauna extinctions ~13,000 years ago may have also contributed to the change in “landscape”? And they get paid to produce this, er, crap???
Not to mention you could walk around in the dark without getting your feet nasty dirty.
Still, it's a job somebody has to do . . . .
So...Old growth forests were not a naturally occurring event?
How old? Countless varieties of flora and fauna have come and gone.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.