Talk by Rinaldo Schinazi (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs)
Date and Time: Thursday, September 29, 2005, 10:00 AM in AP&M 6218.
Title: Mass extinctions: living in a big flock may be bad for you!
Abstract: We propose a new hypothesis that supports the theory of a
blitzkrieg waged by human hunters against some species of animals. We
suggest that some species were doomed when encountering human hunters
because of their tendency to live in large flocks.
We introduce a mathematical model that, at least in theory, shows that
animals living in large flocks during catastrophic times are more
susceptible to mass extinctions than animals living in small flocks. We
also show that in non catastrophic times aggregation may help survival.