Fossils indicate human activities have disturbed ecosystem resilience
Monday, July 13, 2015 - 16:40
in Earth & Climate
A collection of fossilized owl pellets in Utah suggests that when the Earth went through a period of rapid warming about 13,000 years ago, the small mammal community was stable, even as individual species changed along with the habitat and landscape. By contrast, human-caused changes to the environment since the late 1800s have caused an enormous drop in biomass and 'energy flow' in this same community. The resilience that these lands once had to environmental change is being lost.