Abstract
AbstractThe gomphotheres were a diverse and widespread group of proboscideans occupying Eurasia, North America, and South America throughout the Neogene. Their decline was temporally and spatially heterogeneous, and the gomphotheres ultimately became extinct during the late Pleistocene; however, the genusCuvieroniusis rarely represented in late Pleistocene assemblages in North America. Two alternative hypotheses have been invoked to explain this phenomenon: (1) competitive exclusion by sympatric mammoths and mastodons or (2) ecologic displacement due to an environmental transition from closed forests to open grasslands. To test whether competition for resources contributed to the demise of North AmericanCuvieronius, we present herein a large collection of stable isotope and dental microwear data from populations occupying their Pleistocene refugium in the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Results suggest thatCuvieroniusconsumed a wide range of resources with variable textural and photosynthetic properties and was not specialized on either grasses or browse. Further, we document evidence for the consumption of similar foods between contemporaneous gomphotheres, mammoths, and mastodons. The generalist feeding strategy of the gomphotheres likely facilitated their high Miocene abundance and diversity. However, this “jack of all trades and master of none” feeding strategy may have proved challenging following the arrival of mammoths and likely contributed to the extirpation ofCuvieroniusin North America.
Highlights
Gomphotheres are temporally and spatially prolific; the clade became dominant in North America in the Miocene and emigrated to South America from North America after the closure of the Isthmus of Panama between 2.5 and 0.125 Ma (Webb 1985; Reguero et al 2007; Woodburne 2010; Mothé et al 2017)
We present a quantitative analysis of dietary differences among Pleistocene proboscideans in North America using the integration of stable isotope geochemistry and dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA)
Dietary proxy data from proboscideans indicate that the early Pleistocene coexistence of mammoths and gomphotheres was potentially made possible by both proboscideans exhibiting a generalist mixed-feeding dietary habit permitted by abundant resources, but that dramatic climatic and ecologic changes in the late Pleistocene may have limited resource availability and led to increased interspecific competition
Summary
Gomphotheres (subfamily Gomphotheriinae sensu lato) are temporally and spatially prolific; the clade became dominant in North America in the Miocene and emigrated to South America from North America after the closure of the Isthmus of Panama between 2.5 and 0.125 Ma (Webb 1985; Reguero et al 2007; Woodburne 2010; Mothé et al 2017). Their dietary flexibility is hypothesized to have facilitated their successful migration in contrast to mammoths and mastodons, which remained in Central and North America despite the continental connection (Pérez-Crespo et al 2016). These two competing hypotheses have yet to be fully tested or resolved
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