Ivory Elephant in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique▶ Click here for a larger view
As poaching is rampant in Africa, a study has found that more elephants are born without tusks.
Professor Robert Pringle of Princeton University in the United States published a study in the international academic journal Science on the 21st (local time) that ivory poaching during the 1977-1992 civil war in Mozambique had an impact on the evolution of female African savannah elephants.
African elephants were particularly at risk of capture during the civil war in Mozambique, where about 90% of the population was slaughtered by armed forces. The militants captured elephants and sold their ivory to finance the purchase of weapons.
The research team wanted to determine whether it is related to genetic factors or gender, paying attention to the fact that among the African savannah elephants in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, females are often born without tusks.
As a result of analyzing the DNA of seven female elephants with ivory and 11 without tusks, the research team found that a mutation in one side of the X sex chromosome, including a gene that contributes to the development of teeth in mammals, may have caused the ivory to disappear. has analyzed.
Females have XX sex chromosomes and males have XY sex chromosomes. If there is a mutation in the X sex chromosome, females lose ivory and males are more likely to abort in the mother’s womb. The researchers also pointed out that these changes affect not only elephants, but the entire ecosystem.
Ivory is used by elephants as a multi-purpose tool, such as digging up food and debarking trees. The increase in ivory-free elephants could affect other ecosystem properties, such as plant species composition, he said.
ivory elephants▶ Click here for a larger view
“When we think about natural selection, we think of things that happen over hundreds or thousands of years,” said American biologist Samuel Wasser of the study’s findings. “One of the most surprising discoveries.”
Professor Pringle, who led the study, said in an interview with the British daily The Guardian, “It shows the impact of human intervention in nature.
However, he said, “Elephant populations have more than tripled since the 1990s, when elephants were threatened with extinction.
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