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Ecometrics and the paleoecological implications of Pleistocene faunas from the western coastal plains of the Cape Floristic Region,South Africa |
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| Authors: | J Tyler Faith David R Braun Benjamin Davies Larisa R G DeSantis Matthew J Douglass Irene Esteban Vincent Hare Naomi E Levin Julie Luyt Robyn Pickering Mitchell J Power Judith Sealy Deano Stynder |
| Institution: | 1. Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA;2. Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA;3. Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA;4. Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA;5. College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA;6. Evolutionary Studies Institute and School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Braamfontein, South Africa
African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa;7. Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa;8. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA;9. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa;10. Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA |
| Abstract: | The Pleistocene ungulate communities from the western coastal plains of South Africa's Cape Floristic Region (CFR) are diverse and dominated by grazers, in contrast to the region's Holocene and historical faunas, which are relatively species-poor and dominated by small-bodied browsers and mixed feeders. An expansion of grassy habitats is clearly implied by the Pleistocene faunas, but the presence of ruminant grazers that cannot survive the summer dry season typical of the region today suggests other important paleoecological changes. Here we use dental ecometrics to explore the paleoecological implications of the region's Pleistocene faunas. We show that the dental traits (hypsodonty and occlusal topography) of the ungulates that occurred historically in the CFR track annual and summer aridity, and we use these relationships to reconstruct past aridity. Our results indicate that the Pleistocene faunas signal paleoenvironments that were on average less arid than today, including during the summer, consistent with other lines of evidence that suggest a higher water table and expansion of well-watered habitats. Greater water availability can be explained by lower temperature and reduced evapotranspiration during cooler phases of the Pleistocene, probably coupled with enhanced groundwater recharge due to increased winter precipitation. |
| Keywords: | aridity dental traits grassland ungulate water table |