Ecological Changes in Miocene Mammalian Record Show Impact of Prolonged Climatic Forcing
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Ecological Changes in Miocene Mammalian Record Show Impact of Prolonged Climatic Forcing
| Title: | Ecological Changes in Miocene Mammalian Record Show Impact of Prolonged Climatic Forcing |
| Author: |
Pilbeam, David; Badgley, Catherine; Barry, John C.; Morgan, Michele Elizabeth; Behrensmeyer, Anna K.; Cerling, Thure E.
Note: Order does not necessarily reflect citation order of authors. |
| Citation: | Badgley, Catherine, John C. Barry, Michele E. Morgan, Sherry V. Nelson, Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Thure E. Cerling, David Pilbeam. 2008. Ecological changes in Miocene mammalian record show impact of prolonged climatic forcing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Stated of America 105(34): 12145-12149. |
| Full Text & Related Files: |
PNAS-2008-Badgley-12145-9.pdf (433.0Kb; PDF) 
|
| Abstract: | Geohistorical records reveal the long-term impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure. A 5-myr record of mammalian faunas from floodplain ecosystems of South Asia shows substantial change in species richness and ecological structure in relation to vegetation change as documented by stable isotopes of C and O from paleosols. Between 8.5 and 6.0 Ma, C4 savannah replaced C3 forest and woodland. Isotopic historical trends for 27 mammalian herbivore species, in combination with ecomorphological data from teeth, show three patterns of response. Most forest frugivores and browsers maintained their dietary habits and disappeared. Other herbivores altered their dietary habits to include increasing amounts of C4 plants and persisted for >1 myr during the vegetation transition. The few lineages that persisted through the vegetation transition show isotopic enrichment of !13C values over time. These results are evidence for long-term climatic forcing of vegetation structure and mammalian ecological diversity at the subcontinental scale. |
| Published Version: | doi:10.1073/pnas.0805592105 |
| Terms of Use: | This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAA |
| Citable link to this page: | http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3716602 |
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Peer reviewed scholarly articles from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University
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