Balance or imbalance? Paleoecology of the Pleistocene of North and South America

In recent years, the validity of the model proposed by Damuth about the paleoecology of past and present mammalian faunas has been addressed. In previous works such model had been applied to the fauna of Rancho La Brea (North American late Pleistocene), Venta Micena (European early Pleistocene) and...

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Autores principales: Di Giacomo, Mariana, Fariña, Richard A.
Formato: Objeto de conferencia Resumen
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: 2010
Materias:
Ciencias Naturales
Paleontología
Paleoecology
Acceso en línea:http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/16858
Aporte de:
SEDICI (UNLP) de Universidad Nacional de La Plata
id I19-R120-10915-16858
record_format dspace
institution Universidad Nacional de La Plata
institution_str I-19
repository_str R-120
collection SEDICI (UNLP)
language Inglés
topic Ciencias Naturales
Paleontología
Paleoecology
spellingShingle Ciencias Naturales
Paleontología
Paleoecology
Di Giacomo, Mariana
Fariña, Richard A.
Balance or imbalance? Paleoecology of the Pleistocene of North and South America
topic_facet Ciencias Naturales
Paleontología
Paleoecology
description In recent years, the validity of the model proposed by Damuth about the paleoecology of past and present mammalian faunas has been addressed. In previous works such model had been applied to the fauna of Rancho La Brea (North American late Pleistocene), Venta Micena (European early Pleistocene) and to other faunas in South America. In the case of Rancho La Brea, the model had shown that it behaved as expected, i.e., keeping the balance between number of herbivorous species and primary productivity, and between number of carnivore species and secondary productivity. In other words, that the primary productivity was enough to feed the herbivores in the community, and that the secondary productivity (which is the meat available for carnivores to eat) was fully consumed by the carnivores, as in modern, actualistic examples of communities with large mammals. In the South American Lujanian Age (late Pleistocene-early Holocene), an imbalance was proposed, namely that the herbivores did not have enough food to eat according to reconstructions of their environment, and, on the other hand, that the carnivores had too much. In this work twenty six faunas from North America were studied, as well as fifteen from South America. For their study the same model and equations were applied. The results showed that those North American faunas that had number of mammalian species large enough to infer that the community was well represented were balanced, while those with few species or a low number of carnivores were not. In addition, all the Pleistocene South American faunas from diverse origins in the subcontinent were imbalanced. A possible explanation already stated was that in South America there was a great diversity of xenarthrans. In the North American faunas, such diversity was not high, and also not higher than that of any other order of mammals.
format Objeto de conferencia
Resumen
author Di Giacomo, Mariana
Fariña, Richard A.
author_facet Di Giacomo, Mariana
Fariña, Richard A.
author_sort Di Giacomo, Mariana
title Balance or imbalance? Paleoecology of the Pleistocene of North and South America
title_short Balance or imbalance? Paleoecology of the Pleistocene of North and South America
title_full Balance or imbalance? Paleoecology of the Pleistocene of North and South America
title_fullStr Balance or imbalance? Paleoecology of the Pleistocene of North and South America
title_full_unstemmed Balance or imbalance? Paleoecology of the Pleistocene of North and South America
title_sort balance or imbalance? paleoecology of the pleistocene of north and south america
publishDate 2010
url http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/16858
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