Jamie Wood
Fossil poop reveals critical role
of giant birds in New Zealand’s ecosystem
By Elizabeth PennisiFeb.
12, 2018 , 3:00 PM
When the first humans landed on
what is now known as New Zealand 700 years ago, they didn’t find mammals.
Instead, they discovered giant birds called moas, as well as a host of other
indigenous bird species. Soon, they
had eaten many of them into extinction.
Now, by deciphering ancient DNA
found in fossilized bird droppings, researchers have a better idea of the toll
those extinctions took on New Zealand’s forests and shrublands. The study shows
that mushrooms and other fungi were important to the extinct birds’ diets, and
suggests moas had a strong hand in shaping New Zealand’s native landscape by
helping fungi spread, says co-author Alan Cooper, an ancient DNA specialist at
The University of Adelaide in Australia. Now that the moas are gone, “The forest
has potentially lost a potentially major way to spread.”
“This paper is a clear example of
the great potential of ancient DNA-based techniques,” says Melania Cristescu,
an ecological geneticist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who was not
involved in the work. Cristescu says she was surprised by how much information
the DNA contained. “The authors were able to identify a wide variety of species
and to reconstruct the ecology of an extinct species.”
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