Highlights

Climate and the large beasts through the Ice Ages.

A long-cherished, old question in Ecology is: how important the effect of climate change is in shaping the composition of animal communities? Is the evolution of climate to be hold responsible for the change of community composition over time and space? Our research team asked these questions by analyzing late Quaternary large mammals communities of Eurasia, a fascinating ensemble including famed beasts such as the mammoth, the woolly rhino, and the cave hyena, to name a few. We found a strong climatic selection operating on the Ice Age fauna, both through the disappearance of warm adapted species, and by setting the stage for the uniquely cold, extremely diffused habitat known as the mammoth steppe. In contrast, milder environments before and after the Ice Age housed a greater variety of habitas, hence communities. As the mammoth steppe was gone, the mammals which dominated it vanished as well. This suggests humans had a minor effect at best on the survival of the late Quaternary megafauna.

The phylogenetic tree of the species included in this study. The branch colors are indicative of species age, from the Last Interglacial (red) to the Holocene (blue). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
 © Rayon Club 2016