Global warming has been a hot topic in recent times, but climate changes over the past 5 million years were the basis of a lecture Thursday at Kansas University.

Peter deMenocal, associate professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York City, spoke at Lindley Hall as part of the geology department’s weekly colloquium lecture series.

DeMenocal shared some of his research on the effect of climate changes on the evolution of Africa’s animals.

His conclusion: Climate changes have had profound effects over a 5 million-year period.

“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 in an interview. “Some other group does, and they’re the ones that end up living.”

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

The lecture, which was attended by about 50 KU scientists and students, was organized by Don Steeples, vice provost for scholarly support.

“He works in a very important area of the geosciences,” Steeples said. “Paleoclimatology is becoming an extremely important part in the geosciences.”

It was deMenocal’s first visit to the Kansas University campus.

“I’ve enjoyed my time here,” he said. “They’ve been very hospitable.”