Arctic Bones From 75,000 Years Ago Reveal How Animals Adapted To Climate Change

Scientists explored a cave in Norway containing 75,000-year-old animal remains, offering insights into how Arctic wildlife responded to past warming periods. The findings reveal a diverse ecosystem and extinct species. Let's find out more.

Due to global warming, the Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth, and the animals that live there are struggling to keep up. But this isn't the first time that this region is experiencing major climate shift. This has happened before, and scientists are now looking deep into the past to understand how Arctic wildlife might cope in the future.

In a recent study, scientists explored and studied a cave in northern Norway where remains of animals from 75,000 years ago were found. These remains offer a rare glimpse into what life was like in the Arctic thousands of years ago and how animals responded to changing conditions.

The cave, called Arne Qvamgrotta, is located just inside the Arctic Circle near the town of Kjøpsvik, under Norway's national mountain, Stetind. It's part of a larger cave system formed by water eroding limestone rock. These kinds of caves, known as karst caves, often contain hidden underground landscapes. It was first discovered in the 1990s during the limestone mining. Unlike other caves, a layer of sediment with preserved bones somehow stayed intact for thousands of years.

In 2021 and 2022, a team of researchers from the University of Oslo explored the caves and studied the fossilized bones. The findings revealed oldest pictures of Arctic wildlife from this time period.

The team recovered over 6,000 bone fragments, which they analyzed using two main techniques: 

1. Comparative osteology – studying the shapes and features of bones to identify what animal they came from. 

2. Ancient DNA analysis – extracting DNA from tiny bone fragments and comparing it to known species.

Researchers were able to identify 46 different types of animals, including mammals, birds, and fish.

When we think of the ice age, the image of woolly mammoths comes to mind. However, the animal community found in this cave was quite different. The bones date back to the warming period during ice age, which suggests that glaciers had reduced in number, and animals like reindeer and freshwater fish were able to move north.

The variety of species reflects the unique environment near the cave, a coastal ecosystem that supported both land and marine animals. It was likely very different from the drier inland areas further south and east.

DNA from the polar bear, Arctic fox, and collared lemming were the most surprising. These animals belonged to ancient genetic lineages that no longer exist, suggesting that these animals went extinct at some point during the warming period. This discovery shows that even animals that are well adapted to cold climates can still be highly vulnerable to environmental changes. If they can't move or adapt fast enough, they may not survive.

As global warming continues to worsen, studying the past can give us valuable insights into what might happen next. This study shows that some ecosystems and species may be more fragile than we think. By studying past climate, researchers can predict how ecosystems would survive in the coming decades.

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