Study: Ivory trade accelerated "evolution" of tuskless elephants

• During the Mozambican civil war from 1977 to 1992, fighters slaughtered elephants for ivory to support war efforts, leading to the reduction of elephants with tusks, per AP.
• After the war, half of the females were naturally tuskless, while before the war, less than a fifth lacked tusks. The elephant population as a whole decreased by more than 90% due to the war, according to researchers.

Between the lines: The significant reduction in the elephant population after the war "resulted in a phenotype of the species that had a better chance of survival — specifically, female elephants," ABC News reports.

• The tuskless female elephants passed on their genes, resulting in about half of the elephants being tuskless, and about two-thirds of the offspring being female, per AP.

What they're saying: The years of unrest "changed the trajectory of evolution in that population," evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell-Staton said, per AP.

• "When we think about natural selection, we think about it happening over hundreds, or thousands, of years," Samuel Wasser, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington said, per AP.
• "The fact that this dramatic selection for tusklessness happened over 15 years is one of the most astonishing findings."