New Study of Dung Fungus Spores in Panama

There is a lot of scientific evidence in shit. A number of fungi species live in the shit of large mammals. Scientists take cores of sediment, carbon date the layers, and determined the species composition and abundance of dung fungus spores in the samples. (They also examine pollen and charcoal evidence.) The amount of dung fungus spores serves as a proxy for the former abundance of Pleistocene megafauna. Scientists have been looking at dung fungus spores in sediment cores all over the world to learn when Pleistocene megafauna became extinct. Recently, scientists studied a 50-foot-long sediment core taken from Lake La Yeguada in Panama. This lake is located in a mountain jungle forest near the equator and probably originated when a volcanic magma flow blocked a stream outlet. Map and location of Lake La Yeguada. This image and all the others in this blog entry are from the below referenced study. Graph showing dung fungus spore concentrations in sediment core taken at Lake La…