Middle Eocene habitat shifts in the North American western interior: A case study

Abstract

There has been great interest in the global warming events that heralded the onset of the Eocene and particularly the response of mammalian faunas to these events. However, little information is available on the subsequent deterioration of tropical habitats in the interior of North America after these major warming episodes. The decline of tropical habitats is thought to have begun during the middle Eocene in the interior of North America, but until now, no studies have been able to document the details of this event. Recent fossil collection and stratigraphic studies from sites in southwestern Wyoming and northeastern Utah that span the middle Eocene offer a unique opportunity to evaluate changes in habitat in the western interior. Using a discriminant function analysis, habitats were reconstructed for a sequence of eight stratigraphically controlled middle Eocene assemblages. Adaptive profiles (diets, substrate use, and body masses) of fossil mammal communities were statistically compared to those of extant faunas from a variety of Neotropical habitats. Previously published magnetostratigraphic data from Utah provided a means to correlate our stratigraphic sections to the geomagnetic polarity time scale and the oxygen isotope record. The discriminant model shows that there was a significant change in the mammalian community ecology near the end of the late middle Eocene that is likely reflective of a habitat shift. When correlated to the time scale and oxygen isotope record, this key transition from forested habitats typical of the tropical early Eocene to more open woodlands began about 42 million years ago in this region of the Rocky Mountains.