What Happens in a World with Tuskless Elephants?

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Originally appears in the Fall 2022 issue.

By Lisa Nichols

Education of children who are beginning to explore fields of interest and develop ideas about further educational studies can be critical for building a conservation base of future scientists, including citizen scientists. Painting these broad pictures of how human influences on evolution of species has an expansive impact on an ecosystem allows the field of science to encompass an even wider net of people who have an interest in environmental stewardship. A story of elephant poaching and the ivory trade brings in the child who loves elephants and wants to save them. A story that talks about elephants and their tusks’ evolution brings in the elephant supporters and the future genetics scientist. A tale of elephants, tusk evolution, reptile habitat, and changes in ecosystems due to the ivory trade can bring in people with law enforcement interests, herpetologists, ecologists, mammalogists, and more. 

 This article explores recent evolutionary changes in an iconic species, the African Elephant. We can help teachers of high school students find a story of ecosystem evolution that gives them an understanding of the all-encompassing impacts that humans have on an entire geographic environment by altering one single element. Included here is a lesson plan for 11^th– and 12^th-grade students which relates to other species and habitats and how certain environmental changes can have long-lasting impacts. This story is about the illegal ivory trade and how it does more than just remove a large mammal from a balanced ecosystem. It changes the dynamics of that ecosystem and influences the evolution of certain characteristics of elephants. This rapid evolution may initially appear to be an adaptation that might in one way save African Elephants from extinction (due to less poaching desirability because they have no ivory worth collecting), but it has a much broader impact on the evolution of other species.