What combination of pressures likely caused the final extinction event after mainland populations vanished?
Answer
Climate change reducing their grassland habitat and genetic bottlenecks.
The ultimate extinction of the woolly mammoth involved pressures that acted upon the already dwindling, isolated populations surviving in refugia after the mainland disappearance around 10,000 years ago. The primary driver was climate change, which led to the reduction and fragmentation of their essential grassland habitat—the mammoth steppe. Furthermore, because these surviving groups were small and geographically isolated, they became susceptible to the negative consequences associated with small population sizes, such as inbreeding depression, which is encapsulated by the term genetic bottlenecks.
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