{"id":25752,"date":"2023-08-17T16:31:11","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T20:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/?p=25752"},"modified":"2023-08-17T16:31:11","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T20:31:11","slug":"marshall-professors-research-demonstrates-cause-of-ice-age-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/2023\/08\/marshall-professors-research-demonstrates-cause-of-ice-age-extinction\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshall professor’s research demonstrates cause of ice age extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"
Marshall University\u2019s Dr. Robin O\u2019Keefe has led research that was published today on the cover of the prestigious journal Science<\/em> and demonstrates that the extinction of ice age mammals \u2014 dire wolves, sabretooth cats, horses and other species \u2014 was driven by a series of catastrophic fires in Southern California.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Keefe, a professor of Biological Sciences at Marshall, and his team used a large sample of new radiocarbon dates on extinct species from the tar pits at Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles. The data show that most species disappeared during a massive fire event that peaked about 13,000 years ago and was caused by humans and climate change.<\/p>\n

Having research published on the cover of Science<\/em> is a tremendous achievement, said Dean Wesley Stites of Marshall\u2019s College of Science.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo put this in context for non-scientists,\u00a0Science<\/em> magazine is arguably the most prestigious place in the world to place peer-reviewed research,\u201d Stites said. \u201cSo just getting your work into Science is a lifetime ambition for many scientists. To get into Science<\/em>\u00a0means that the paper is thought by the editors to be very influential, of interest to the broad scientific community, and novel. And Robin O\u2019Keefe is the lead author.\u00a0And the article was selected for the cover of the magazine.\u00a0It just doesn\u2019t get better than that in scientific publishing.\u00a0The work of Robin and his team is a scientific home run. Marshall and the College of Science could not be prouder of this gifted researcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Keefe\u2019s team\u2019s complex research presents evidence to answer a long-standing question of scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumans co-existed with megafauna for thousands of years before the extinction event,\u201d O\u2019Keefe noted. \u201cWhy did this event happen when it did?\u201d<\/p>\n

The study, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, used rich pollen records and detailed climate proxies to show that the climate in Southern California warmed and dried significantly as the ice age ended. Econometric modeling was then used to analyze causal factors and strongly implicates humans as the primary cause of the fires, both directly through ignition, and indirectly through the elimination of herbivores. However, the fires were also promoted by the warming and drying climate, O\u2019Keefe said. Together, the confluence of human and other factors enabled an ecological state shift, from one ecological regime (megafaunal woodland) to another (human chaparral).<\/p>\n

This state shift entailed a major floral reorganization and the elimination of megafauna, O\u2019Keefe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumans were largely responsible for the extinction, but not through overkill. Increasing human impacts in a warming, drying climate set the stage for ecological catastrophe,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said. \u201cThis event is a cautionary tale for today, particularly considering our warming climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

To view the article, visit:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/raging-wildfires-may-doomed-californias-ancient-megamammals-tar-pit-fossils-reveal<\/a><\/p>\n

“Dr. O’Keefe’s innovative research highlights how our actions impact the environment’s delicate balance,\u201d said Dr. Avinandan Mukherjee, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at Marshall. \u201cBy understanding our history, we can wisely navigate modern challenges towards a sustainable future.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Keefe has held a faculty position at Marshall since 2006 and has taught over 2,000 undergraduates in courses ranging from human anatomy to comparative zoology and earth history. He has successfully mentored 19 master\u2019s degrees, with two in progress. He received his bachelor\u2019s degree in honors Biology from Stanford University in 1992, and his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Chicago in 2000.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Keefe has published widely in journals including Science, Nature, PNAS, Systematic Biology,<\/em> and numerous others. An acknowledged expert on marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs, O\u2019Keefe was named Distinguished John Deaver Drinko Academy Fellow for academic year 2012-2013, and then received a Drinko Distinguished Research Fellowship Grant in 2017\u00a0for his work on plesiosaur reproduction. O\u2019Keefe has also published on the anatomy and relationships of Permian reptiles from Africa, as well as a series of papers on the evolutionary biology of Rancho La Brea carnivores. O\u2019Keefe has done paleontological field work in the Caribbean, Madagascar, Niger, China, Europe, and throughout the American West, with current digs in the Cretaceous of Wyoming and Montana.<\/p>\n

\u201cRobin O\u2019Keefe\u2019s cover article in\u00a0Science<\/em> is very exciting in several ways,\u201d Stites said. \u201cFirst, the work itself provides insight into how sweeping changes in the ecology of North America took place 13,000 years ago. All sorts of animals that we all learned about in grade school went extinct then, and a long-running question has been how and why they died off. This international team provides solid evidence for the first time that widespread wildfires and the associated changes in habitat are at least part of the answer. And they raise the possibility that humans may have been part of the reason for the fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. O\u2019Keefe\u2019s pivotal role as the leader of a complicated project with 19 investigators across 16 institutions affirms the quality of our faculty and their ability to do cutting-edge work at Marshall,\u201d Stites continued. \u201cAnd, last but not least, this is serious research work that legitimately includes sabertooths. How impossibly cool is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more about the College of Science at Marshall University, visit www.marshall.edu\/cos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Photo caption:<\/p>\n

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  1. Dr. Robin O\u2019Keefe<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Marshall University\u2019s Dr. Robin O\u2019Keefe has led research that was published today on the cover of the prestigious journal Science and demonstrates that the extinction of ice age mammals \u2014 dire wolves, sabretooth cats, horses and other species \u2014 was driven by a series of catastrophic fires in Southern California. O\u2019Keefe, a professor of Biological […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":239,"featured_media":25753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,42,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements","category-cos","category-news-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25755,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25752\/revisions\/25755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}