Brown bear
Leopard
Tiger
Lion
The blue color shows areas where brown bear, leopard, tiger and lion are today, the red color shows where they would have been, had it not been for humans. The grey areas show where the now extinct cave lion and American lion would have lived. Søren Faurby is projcet research leader for the database PHYLACINE.
The PHYLACINE database the database can also be used to try to restore biodiversity. What would happen if, for example, elephants were reintroduced to the French countryside? They have lived there before, so it should work. They would open up the landscape like the big animals they are. Søren Faurby is less convinced about using genetic engineering to bring back extinct animals. – I have nothing against a billionaire investing his fortune in such a project, but research funds should not be spent in that way. Increasing biological diversity, at least to some extent, I think is a much better idea. The PHYLACINE database requires some technical skill to use, but it is accessible to everyone.
The database includes all the known 5, 831 mammals, living and extinct, from the past 130,000 years that have existed on the planet and is based on a compilation of a large number of DNA databases, data from fossil excavations, maps and ar ticles about extinct animals and much more. The senior researcher is Søren Faurby, Universi ty of Gothenburg. Other contributors are Alexandre
Antonelli, University of Gothenburg, and Matt Davis, Jens Christian Svenning, R.Ø. Pedersen and S.D. Schowa nek at Aarhus University. Link to the database: https:// github.com/MegaPast2Futu re/PHYLACINE_1.2 Link to the article The Phylogenic Atlas of Mammal Macroecology: https:// esajournals.onlinelibrary. wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ ecy.2443.
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