Science media notes UMaine role in study about early hunting in North America

Science Daily, Scienmag and Bioengineer.org noted that Brian McGill, professor of biological sciences in the University of Maine School of Biology and Ecology, was co-author of a study led by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln about how early hunting homogenized mammal communities in North America. The researchers conducted an analysis of 8,831 fossils representing 365 mammal species from 366 sites across North America, using these fossil records to determine the degree to which the specific mammal species in one ecological community resembled the species composition of its surrounding communities. Homo sapiens, the team found, are probably most responsible for the unprecedented rates and levels of homogenization seen in North American mammal communities, flattening their distinctive character by escalating the similarity among many of them, first through hunting and then by settling into dependence on agriculture.