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From mastodons to giant deer—large herbivores have shaped the Earth’s landscapes for millions of years. A new study led by the University of Gothenburg, with contributions from researchers at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and institutions in Spain, now reveals how these giants responded to major environmental changes—and how their ecosystems managed to remain stable, even as many species vanished.
Large herbivores like elephants and rhinos are not only impressive animals—they are key “ecosystem engineers.” Their decline in the course of the current sixth mass extinction threatens entire habitats, as they structure landscapes, promote biodiversity, and maintain vital ecological processes.
The research team, led by Dr. Fernando Blanco, a visiting researcher at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, analyzed fossil data from more than 3,000 species of large herbivores spanning the past 60 million years. “We found that these ecosystems remained remarkably stable over long periods, even though species were constantly coming and going,” says Blanco, who conducted this research as part of his PhD between 2018 and 2022 in the Amniota Lab at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. “But twice in the last 60 million years, environmental pressure was so extreme that the entire system underwent global reorganization.”
The first tipping point occurred around 21 million years ago, when the closure of the Tethys Sea and the formation of the Gomphotherium Land Bridge between Africa and Eurasia triggered a massive wave of species migrations. The ancestors of modern elephants, deer, pigs, rhinos, and many other large herbivores entered new habitats, altering the ecological balance on a global scale.
The second shift occurred about 10 million years ago, with a global cooling and the widespread expansion of grasslands. This transition from forested to open environments led to the rise of grazing species and a gradual disappearance of many forest-dwelling herbivores. It marked the beginning of a long-term decline in the functional diversity of these animals—the range of ecological roles they played.
Despite these losses, the researchers found that the overall ecological structure of herbivore communities remained strikingly stable. Even as many of the largest species—such as mammoths and giant rhinos—went extinct over the past 129,000 years, the underlying functional framework of ecosystems persisted.
“It’s like a football team swapping players during a match without changing its formation,” explains Dr. Ignacio A. Lazagabaster of CENIEH (Centro National de Investigacion Sobre la Evolucion Humana, Spain), co-author of the study. “New species took the field and communities changed, but the newcomers fulfilled similar ecological roles—keeping the system structurally intact.”
This resilience endured through ice ages and other environmental upheavals, right up to the present. However, the researchers warn: “Our results show that ecosystems have an incredible capacity for adaptation,” says Dr. Juan L. Cantalapiedra of the Spanish MNCN (Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales) and visiting researcher at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. “But there are limits. If we continue to lose species and their ecological functions at today’s pace, we could soon trigger a third global tipping point—and we humans are driving it forward.”
Full article available at Current Biology
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59974-x
https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/museum/media/press/what-60-million-ye...
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Biology, Environment / ecology, Geosciences
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