Mammalian Extinction Dynamics in the Late Quaternary of Siberia and the Hyperdisease Hypothesis

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This study involves an innovative approach to understanding the dynamics of Quaternary extinctions of polar mammals. The causes of most extinctions in earth history are obscure, but several events responsible for extraordinary losses during the last 40,000 years have proven especially resistant to testable explanation. A new hypothesis_the "hyperdisease hypothesis"_ proposed by the investigators may explain the known facts of certain late Quaternary extinctions better than competing hypotheses do. The essence of the argument is that, under certain circumstancces, highly infectious, highly lethal diseases can be a cause of species extinctions. The argument has testable implications, but it will first be necessary to create a database that does not now exist and to conduct laboratory investigations that could not have been undertaken even a decade ago. The investigators intend to participate in an expedition organized by Russian colleagues from the Institute of Zoology, St. Petersburg, Russia, during summer 1998 to recover late Pleistocene mammal specimens, especially woolly mammoths Mammuthus primigenius, preserved in permafrost conditions in eastern Siberia, and to undertake a battery of molecular analyses designed to detect, amplify, and sequence the host and viral genetic material in existing museum samples as well as material collected during the course of the present investigation. The Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) program will allow the investigators to take advantage of a unique opportunity to collect mammoth carcasses frozen in the permafrost tundra.