• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Features
  • Campus News
  • CSUDH.edu
  • Contact
  • People
    • Staff Spotlight
    • Faculty Highlights
    • Alumni
  • Magazine
  • For Journalists
    • CSUDH In The News
    • Press Releases
    • Facts and Figures
    • Find Media Experts
    • Gallery
    • News Reporting on Campus

CSUDH News

The primary source of news and information about California State University, Dominguez Hills, its students, faculty, and staff.

You are here: Home / Archive / News / Study Finds Megadroughts and Humans Caused Extinction of Giant Species on Madagascar

Study Finds Megadroughts and Humans Caused Extinction of Giant Species on Madagascar

October 23, 2020

Professor Ashish Sinha
Ashish Sinha, a professor of earth sciences at CSUDH, has co-authored a study on the extinction of megafauna on the island of Madagascar.

Ashish Sinha, a professor of earth sciences at CSUDH, has co-authored a recent research study which found that while droughts on the island of Madagascar contributed to the extinction of such giant species the Dodo bird, gorilla-sized lemurs, and the Elephant Bird, it may have been humans that ultimately sealed their fate.

Published Oct. 16 in Science Advances, the study shows that the crash of megafauna (large or giant animals, especially of a given region) that happened around 1,500 years ago took place after a couple of centuries of human settlement. This heightened human activity, in combination with a particularly severe spell of region-wide drought, may have doomed the large birds and animals.

The study, “A multimillennial climatic context for the megafaunal extinctions in Madagascar and Mascarene Islands” was published Oct. 16 in Science Advances by a team of international researchers. To learn more, visit https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/42/eabb2459/.

The study centers on the Mascarene islands east of Madagascar, because they are among the last islands on Earth to be colonized. The primary source of this new paleoclimate record came from stalagmites in one of the many caves on the tiny island of Rodrigues. The team reconstructed the region’s rainfall patterns over the last 8,000 years by studying and analyzing  trace elements and carbon and oxygen isotopes from each incremental growth layer of stalagmites.

Analyses revealed that the region experienced a series of megadroughts that lasted for decades, with the most recent drought around the time when all the large species died out. However, the region’s large wildlife had previously survived more severe droughts, and archaeological records show that human presence increased around that time. Historically, human settlement also brought such stressors as habitat devastation, overhunting, disease, and according to the study, the end of Madagascar’s megafauna.

“We cannot say with 100 percent certainty whether human activity, such as overhunting or habitat destruction, was the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back, but our paleoclimate records make a strong case that the megafauna had survived through all the previous episodes of even greater aridity,” notes Sinha. “This resilience to past climate swings suggests that an additional stressor contributed to the elimination of the region’s megafauna.”

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Earth Science, Earth Sciences, Faculty, Research, Students

Primary Sidebar

Social Media

Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Instagram
LinkedIn
SOCIALICON

Recent Campus News

Robin DiAngelo onstage under a slide reading "In 2023, we must be able to engage in issues of race with openness and nuance."

Robin DiAngelo Challenges White People to Be Anti-Racist

student and advisor at the CHHSN Success Center

New Student Success Centers Open Their Doors

In Conversation with Lauren Halsey

Amber Riley onstage

Amber Riley Shares Struggles, Triumphs at Presidential Distinguished Lecture Series

2022 Division II Conference Commissioners Association West Region Player of the Year Sulaiman Bah

Sulaiman Bah Named West Region Player of the Year

... see all Campus News

Recently In the News

Students using microscopes

Insight into Diversity: California Grant Expands Health Professions Access for Underrepresented Students

January 4, 2023

Video still: 2:24 CSUDH can boast about graduating 5 current mayors

NBC4: CSUDH Can Boast about Graduating 5 Current Mayors

December 16, 2022

Recent graduates holding certificates from the Small Business Growth Academy

Daily Breeze: Carson Celebrates 1st Graduates of Small Business Growth Academy

December 16, 2022

... see all In the News

Footer

California State University, Dominguez Hills Logo

1000 E. Victoria Street, Carson, CA 90747
1-310-243-2001 • Send Email

Related Sites

  • csudh.edu
  • magazine.csudh.edu
  • gotoros.com

EMAIL NEWSLETTER

Get CSUDH News directly in your inbox

Copyright © 2023 · California State University, Dominguez Hills