How Flexible Were Mammals in Adapting to Past Climate Shifts?

Profile Picture of - Nicolas Bourgon

Nicolas Bourgon

Abstract information

In this video, NICOLAS BOURGON investigates how mammals in northern Vietnam and Laos adapted to dramatic environmental and climatic shifts over the last 150,000 years. Using advanced stable isotope analysis methods on tooth enamel, he reconstructs past diets, habitats, and ecological behaviors across a wide range of species. His findings show that animals surviving in the region today displayed high ecological flexibility, while extinct species were ecological specialists with limited adaptability. This multi-layered reconstruction of past ecosystems could offer valuable insights for modern conservation policy in Southeast Asia, a biodiversity hotspot under intense human pressure.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB101212

Researcher

Dr. Nicolas Bourgon is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanization at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. He specializes in zinc stable isotope analysis of tooth enamel to study dietary adaptation and trophic ecology in fossil humans and animals, particularly in tropical environments. Bourgon earned his PhD in Geosciences in 2022 from Johannes Gutenberg University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, after completing his MA in Archaeology at the Paris National Natural History Museum and a BA in Archaeology at Laval University.

Institution information

Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology

The Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA) focuses on the interrelationships between natural and human-made systems, looking into the deep past and distant future to examine how humanity has driven the emergence of the Anthropocene – the geological period in which human activities began significantly impacting our planet’s climate and ecosystems – and how we can still positively influence its course.

The transdisciplinary research at MPI-GEA will bring together research areas represented by all three scientific sections of the MPG: Biology & Medicine; Chemistry, Physics and Technology; and Human Sciences. Corresponding inter- and transdisciplinary research projects concern, for example, planetary urbanisation, the global food system, and global material, energy and information flows.

Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology
Cover Photo of - Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology

Original Publication

Faunal persistence and ecological flexibility in Pleistocene Southeast Asia revealed through multi-isotope analysis

Book Recommendation

Human Adaptation in the Asian Palaeolithic

Ryan J. Rabett

This book examines the first human colonization of Asia and particularly the tropical environments of Southeast Asia during the Upper Pleistocene. In studying the unique character of the Asian archaeological record, it reassesses long-accepted propositions about the development of human 'modernity.' Ryan J. Rabett reveals an evolutionary relationship between colonization, the challenges encountered during this process – especially in relation to climatic and environmental change – and the forms of behaviour that emerged. This book argues that human modernity is not something achieved in the remote past in one part of the world, but rather is a diverse, flexible, responsive and ongoing process of adaptation.

Citation

Nicolas Bourgon, 

Latest Thinking, 

How Flexible Were Mammals in Adapting to Past Climate Shifts?, 

https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB101212

Credits:

© Nicolas Bourgon 

and Latest Thinking

This work is licensed under CC-BY 4.0