Woolly mammoths were grass-eating mammals that resembled elephants but with heavy coats, large tusks, and small ears that made them suited for extremely cold weather of the ice age. in addition to hunting by humans, which other conditions may have caused woolly mammoths to become less reproductively successful and eventually become extinct at the end of the last ice age?

As the ice age was nearing to an end, the woolly mammoths faced multiple problems.

One of them were the humans, that even though did not hunt them excessively, because they killed the young individuals were endangering the reproduction of the populations.

The climate suddenly changed. The environment was changing so quickly that the larger animals that were very specialized were not able to change quickly enough to survive in the new environment.

The available food changed, and the mammoths were not able to digest it properly, so that led to starvation, and also delaying of reproduction because the animals didn't had enough food for themselves, yet alone for newborns.

All of these things combined, hampered the reproduction of the woolly mammoths, and led to their dying out.

an individual’s sex (i.e., whether they are a male or female) is determined by the sex chromosomes. most people have two sex chromosomes, one that is inherited from their mother and one that is inherited from their father. typically, females have two x chromosomes (xx) and males have one x chromosome and one y chromosome (xy). conditions caused by changes (“mutations”) in genes located on the x chromosome are considered x-linked.

x-linked recessive inheritance

most x-linked conditions are recessive. this means that in a person with two x chromosomes (most females), both copies of a gene (i.e., one on each x chromosome) must have a change or mutation whereas in a person with one x chromosome (most males), only one copy of a gene must have a mutation. a female with a mutation in one copy of a gene on the x chromosome is said to be a “carrier” for an x-linked condition. a male with a mutation in a gene on the x chromosome is typically affected with the condition. because females have two copies of the x chromosome and males have only one x chromosome, x-linked recessive diseases are more common among males than females. however, x-linked recessive diseases can occur in both males and females.

for x-linked recessive disorders, an unaffected carrier mother who has a mutation in a gene on the x chromosome can transmit either the x chromosome with this mutation or a “normal” x chromosome to her children. if the father is unaffected, none of her daughters will be affected and all of her daughters will be unaffected—since they will inherit at least one normal x chromosome from their father. however, each daughter will have a 50% chance of being an unaffected carrier like her mother and a 50% chance of both x chromosomes being normal.