www.merdeka.com – Scientists have long debated why non-bird dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, went extinct, while mammals and other species like turtles and crocodiles survived.
The study, conducted by an international team of paleontologists and ecologists, analyzed 1,600 fossil records from North America. The researchers modeled the food webs and ecological habitats of terrestrial and freshwater animals during the last million years of the Cretaceous period and the first million years of the Paleogene period, after the asteroid hit the Earth.
Paleontologists have long known that many small mammals coexisted with dinosaurs. But this research reveals that these mammals diversified their diets, adapted to their environments and became more important components of ecosystems as the Cretaceous progressed. Meanwhile, dinosaurs lived only in stable niches where they adapted very well.
Experts say mammals not only capitalized on the disappearance of the dinosaurs, but created their own advantage through diversification, occupying new ecological niches, developing more varied diets and behaviors, and surviving small climate changes, i.e. adapting rapidly.
This behavior probably helped them survive, as they were better able to cope with the sudden and radical destruction caused by the asteroid than the dinosaurs. This was quoted from the Science Blog page, Thursday (8/12).
‘Our study provides a fascinating picture of the ecological structure, food webs and niches of the last dinosaur-dominated ecosystems of the Cretaceous and the first mammal-dominated ecosystems after the asteroid impact. It helps us to understand one of the ancient mysteries of paleontology: why all non-bird dinosaurs die, but birds and mammals survive,” explained first author of the study, Jorge García-Girón of the Geography Research Unit of the University of Oulu, Finland, and the Department of Biodiversity and environmental management from the University of León, Spain.
“It appears that the stable ecology of the last dinosaurs actually hindered their survival after the asteroid impact, which suddenly changed the ecological rules of the time. In contrast, some earlier birds, mammals, crocodiles and turtles better adapted to the changes in an unstable and fast-paced environment, which may have made them more able to survive when things suddenly went wrong when the asteroid hit,” explained another researcher, Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza from the Department of Ecology and Animal Biology, University of Vigo, Spain.
Senior author Professor Steve Brusatte, personal chair of paleontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Earth Sciences, said dinosaurs were doing strong with stable ecosystems until an asteroid suddenly killed them.
“Meanwhile, mammals diversified their diet, ecology and behavior while dinosaurs were alive. extinction and moving into a different niche.” left by dead dinosaurs.”
The research is published in the journal Science Advances. [pan]
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