Wilding: Violent Animal Packs Shaped Pleistocene Ecosystems
For years, evolutionary biologists have wondered how ecosystems during the Pleistocene epoch survived despite the presence of many species of huge, hungry herbivores, such as mammoths, mastodons and giant ground sloths. Observations on modern elephants suggest that large concentrations of those animals could have essentially destroyed the environment, but that wasn't the case. A new paper argues that the ecosystem was effectively saved by predatory animals that helped keep the population of large herbivores in check. Their findings show that intense, violent attacks by packs of some of the world's largest carnivores -- including lions much larger than those of today and sabertooth cats -- went a long way toward shaping ecosystems during the Pleistocene epoch. read more