pstarr wrote:If there were zero people than some other animal (a jellyfish perhaps. Or maybe a snail) would somehow mutate, adapt, takeover, overshoot and die off. Just like us.
dolanbaker wrote:Rodents are the most likely successor due to their ability to quickly adapt to a changing environment and the fact that they can "breed like rabbits!". Their populations would explode due to the lack of predators and quickly overpopulate and crash.
vtsnowedin wrote: I would expect one of the African apes to eventually evolve into a human substitute over a million years or so. The opposing thumbs and current brain size and problem solving ability give them a head start over any other species.
In the meantime the plains of Africa would fill to capacity with everything from Elephant to Dikidiki and all the predators would have plenty to eat.
In the Americas buffalo and elk would compete with wild cattle and horses all kept in check by wolves, coyotes and mountain lions.
vtsnowedin wrote:dolanbaker wrote:Rodents are the most likely successor due to their ability to quickly adapt to a changing environment and the fact that they can "breed like rabbits!". Their populations would explode due to the lack of predators and quickly overpopulate and crash.
Why would there be a lack of predators?
I would expect one of the African apes to eventually evolve into a human substitute over a million years or so. The opposing thumbs and current brain size and problem solving ability give them a head start over any other species.
In the meantime the plains of Africa would fill to capacity with everything from Elephant to Dikidiki and all the predators would have plenty to eat.
In the Americas buffalo and elk would compete with wild cattle and horses all kept in check by wolves, coyotes and mountain lions.
Lore wrote:
Why would you expect that? In millions of years of evolution there is only one of us and apes are still apes. The capacitance for higher reason that makes humans different isn't a benifit that's just handed out over time. Alligators for instance are much the same as they were 150 million years ago.
vtsnowedin wrote: With humans removed from Africa I would expect one of the ape species ,most likely the Gibbons to take up the position of top predator on the plains
dolanbaker wrote:vtsnowedin wrote:dolanbaker wrote:Rodents are the most likely successor......
..........coyotes and mountain lions.
In many parts of the world, predators would have competed with humans and so have been almost eliminated. The rodent population explosion will be so rapid that no predator would be able to eat that much rodent. It is often said that there is one Rat per human but only about one fox per 1000 and foxes breed slower. Cats would do well but even they will be out stripped by the explosion in mice.
It would probably take a couple of decades for the predator/prey balance to be restored.
As for "future humans" you could be right.
dorlomin wrote:vtsnowedin wrote: With humans removed from Africa I would expect one of the ape species ,most likely the Gibbons to take up the position of top predator on the plains
How will gibbons get to Africa?
And top predator is the lion.
Lore wrote:Raises an interesting question. If a super virus ends humans, would that virus then be considered top predator having toppled number one?
It took about 5 million years to get from a common anscetor to Homo Habilis. In that time what became Homo developed bipedalsim and what became Pan (chimps and bonobos) specialised in knuckle walking. In Africa sapiens is unlikely to have become top predator until the invention of metal and until Homo Ergaster Homo was likely to be a prey species. There will unlikely be much of a man shaped hole in Africa and it would be millions of years and some unlikely rerunning of a very ideosyncratic evolution before any new upright primates arrived.vtsnowedin wrote:dorlomin wrote:vtsnowedin wrote: With humans removed from Africa I would expect one of the ape species ,most likely the Gibbons to take up the position of top predator on the plains
How will gibbons get to Africa?
And top predator is the lion.
Swing from tree to tree across India then walk. I was thinking of a ape closely related to the chimps. Pulled the wrong name from my increasingly creaky memory.
Man is the top predator at present.
Aha! here is the one the Bonobo.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/w ... nobo-love/
dorlomin wrote:
In Eurasia\The Americas\Australasia there will be big predator niches to fill, the ones humans wiped out.
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