Friday, April 4, 2008

What killed the wooly mammoth?

In PLoS Biology this week is a new paper that uses climate models and fossil distribution to deduce that the woolly mammoth went extinct primarily because of loss of habitat due to changes in temperature, while human hunting acted as the final straw. The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a nonprofit open access scientific publishing project and the PLoS journals have rapidly become a premium venue. Like some other major journals they have editorials on a number of selected articles each issue (eg here for the mammoth story) and you can also see the response of other readers.
Sedwick C (2008) What Killed the Woolly Mammoth? PLoS Biol 6(4): Published: April 1, 2008

No comments: