Big animals crucial for soil fertility

Megafauna, like the woolly mammoth, played a key role in fertilising soil far away from areas near rivers where they fed

THE mass extinction of large animals in the Pleistocene caused today’s dearth of soil nutrients, scientists said recently, and warned of further damage if modern giants like the elephant disappear.

The Pleistocene epoch, which dated from about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago, saw large animals dubbed megafauna take over domination of the planet from extinct dinosaurs, only to die out en masse themselves.