Danish researchers at the Aarhus University, conducted a new study to understand what would the world look like in absence of Homo sapiens or human species! The study was not conducted from the perspective of climatic changes; rather it was aimed at “studying the extent to which humans have reshaped the Earth’s biodiversity”. It appears European continent has suffered a lot of devastation, all thanks to the inhuman activity by the Homo sapiens, due to which many of the native mammals have historically reached a level of extinction over the last thousand years. The outcome of the study thus revealed that if we assume Earth was devoid of humans, most of the northern Europe, in particular, would have been inhabited by the mammalian species including bears, elephants, rhinoceroses, which have been wiped out to a great extent. Not only that, it would have also been a home to different varieties of wolves, elks, bears along with a possibility that it would have witnessed the immigration of faraway animals such as elephant or rhinoceros. Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, a member of the research team, from Aarhus University, believes that the biodiversity has not been limited only to Europe but it has been seen across the world. He said: The research and its findings has been published in Diversity and Distributions. Soren Faurby, lead author on the study explained why Africa is considered the ‘last refuge’ for the greatest examples of mammals biodiversity in today’s age, he said: The study clearly revealed that in absence of humans, definitely, both North and South America, together would have had far greater biodiversity today than what Africa currently has! The findings also revealed that mountain regions across the world seems to have a greater mammal diversity and surprisingly the reason for this biodiversity has nothing to do with the geographical pattern and it is just because humans have a lesser tendency to reach these places. Faurby continued: “The current high level of biodiversity in mountainous areas is partly due to the fact that the mountains have acted as a refuge for species in relation to hunting and habitat destruction, rather than being a purely natural pattern. For instance, in Europe is the brown bear, which now virtually only live in mountainous regions because it has been exterminated from the more accessible and most often more densely populated lowland areas.” The news release on the findings mentioned that the study was a continuation from the research team’s earlier study, which had held human expansion solely responsible for the extinction of the enormous species after last Ice Age. Based on the current study, researchers say that in absence of humans, our entire Earth would have been a great giant Zoo. When compared to both the studies, it actually reveals almost the same thing, humans are responsible for damaging the overall ecosystem! But, Faurby and his team pointed out that their study and findings have emphasized on the importance of restoring and conserving nature and hence it might help to provide some useful guidelines on conservation efforts.
