It's difficult to imagine the world without humans, but a new study was actually able to draw a map of what the Earth would look like, if the Homo sapiens never existed.
Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark demonstrated that in a world without humans, wolves, moose, bears, elephants and rhinoceroses would dominate most of northern Europe.
A previous analysis showed that during the Last Ice Age and in the late Quaternary megafauna extinction, large mammals started to become extinct and modern man continued to expand. This new study, which is a follow-up of the previous analysis, investigated the patterns of worldwide diversity in mammals, without the past and present species of humans. The analysis was based on each species estimated natural distribution, according to their biogeography, ecology and the current template of the natural environment.
The mammal diversity world map was made without the modern man's impact.
According to Professor Jens-Christian Svenning at the Department of Bioscience at Aarhus University, "Northern Europe is far from the only place in which humans are reduced to the diversity of mammals, it's a worldwide phenomenon, and in most places, there's a very large deficit in mammal diversity relative to what it would naturally have been."
As known to most, Africa is currently home to a diversity of mammals. In this new map constructed by the researchers of natural diversity of large mammals, these mammals are greatly distributed across the world. North and South America, for example, are currently home to a low population of large mammals. In this estimated map of a world without humans, North and South America have high levels of large mammal diversity.
According to the researchers, today's safaris are also seen in Africa. In The map also shows that even in Texas areas around it extending from North America to Southern Brazil, large mammals could have existed without the modern man.
In their study, the researchers highlighted that a reason why Africa is currently widely populated by various species of mammals is not due ideal climate and environment, but largely because it has not yet been, exterminated by humans.
The researchers explained their new analysis in a paper published in the online journal Diversity and Distribution.
