About 2.8 million years ago, the climate in Africa started getting drier. About the same time — geologically speaking — humankind’s first ancestors appeared on the continent and started developing stone tools.

Peter deMenocal doesn’t think that’s a coincidence.

“Not surprisingly, biology is closely related to climate,” said deMenocal, an associate professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in New York. “Climate changes lead to changes to the diversity and survival strategies of various life forms.”

DeMenocal will be on the Kansas University campus Thursday to discuss how climate changes in Africa during the past 5 million years altered the evolution of animals on the continent. He is speaking as part of KU geology department’s seminar series, which features a lineup of distinguished speakers.

He is a “paleooceanographer” who studies sediments and fossils on the ocean floor to identify how the Earth’s climate has changed throughout history.

“He’s a world-renowned expert,” said Bruce Lieberman, an associate professor of geology at KU.

That research has led deMenocal to conclude that climate changes have profound effects on life on Earth.

“If you imagine that there’s a group of animals that are adapted to a forest, and the climate changes so that the forests disappear … they cease to have a biological advantage to living in that area,” deMenocal said. “Some other group does, and they’re the ones that end up living.”

The talk, which is open to the public, will be at 4 p.m. Thursday in 103 Lindley Hall.