Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 20:24
Forums
Kuril Islands Biocomplexity 08

Hi again mike!  I am wondering what kinds of animals are on the islands at present and if this has changed from evidence in your excavations.  Would the islands have had a different climate years ago and so different animals as well?  I did some research on continental drift last year and am curious how these island may have "moved" over time. 

 

Mon, 09/08/2008 - 08:58

KBP Team

In general, the kinds of animals on the islands today are the same as the kinds of animals that have been there throughout the Holocene (the large period of geological time that follows the Ice Ages, or Pleistocene).  But there are a few changes that may be important ecologically, and may have been important for the people living in the Kurils. 
Today, there are red foxes on most of the islands, and there are brown bears on the large islands at the north and south end of the archipelago.  During historic times, arctic foxes were also introduced to many of the islands.  We are hoping to use DNA studies from ancient and modern fox bones to try to determine when and from where the foxes may have come.
 
Foxes are hugely important ecologically because they tend to eat a lot of birds and bird eggs.  In the Kurils (as in the Aleutians, and elsewhere), there are several sea bird species that nest on the ground and/or in burrows.  That makes them an easy target for hunting foxes.  So once foxes get to an island, the breeding populations of many of the sea bird species (puffins, gulls, auklets) can get reduced or completely eliminated.  That is a pretty major ecological effect!
 
---Dr. E