<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/au-cec122319.php" class="has-thumb" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s; display: block; position: relative; padding: 0px; min-height: 125px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><header style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 18px 0px; margin-right: 110px;" class=""><div class="reltime" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 2px;"><span style="font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><font color="#000000" class="">News Release 23-Dec-2019</font></span></div><h2 class="post_title" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><font color="#000000" class="">Cultural evolution caused broad-scale historical declines of large mammals across China</font></span></h2><span class="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#000000" class="">AARHUS UNIVERSITY</font></span></header><div class="entry hidden-xs" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 110px;"><p class="intro" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; border-left-width: 2px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(185, 186, 188); padding-left: 10px; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><font color="#000000" class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">Researchers from Aarhus University and Nanjing University have shown that cultural evolution overshadowed climate change in driving historical broad-scale megafauna dynamics across China. By mining Chinese administrative records for data on species distributions and land use alongside climate data from 2 to 1953 CE, the researchers identified the millennia-long spread of agriculture and agricultural intensification as the main cause of the extirpation of the Asiatic elephant, Asian rhinoceroses, tiger, Asiatic black bear, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class="">and brown bear.</span></font></span></p></div><dl class="meta hidden-xs dl-horizontal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 17px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-right: 110px;"><dt class="yellow" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.42857; float: left; width: auto; clear: left; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; text-transform: uppercase; border-left-width: 2px; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(255, 177, 52); padding-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 12px; min-width: 100px;"><span style="font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><font color="#000000" class="">JOURNAL</font></span></dt><dd style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.42857; margin-left: 100px;" class=""><em style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px;" class=""><font color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</font></em></dd></dl></a><div class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">Full release </span><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/au-cec122319.php" class="">https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/au-cec122319.php</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I saw NO mention of China’s human population boom during these two centuries. But that may have had a lot more to do with wiping out the animals than “culture” could ever do alone</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^<br class="">“Schwartz and others (2010) found that grizzly bear survival in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem declined <br class="">as road density, number of homes, and site developments increased.”<br class=""><br class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Flathead National Forest Biological Assessment, December 2017 p. 104</div></div>
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