Pleistocene and. Holocene Records of Antilocapra Americana: A Review of the FAUNMAP Data

Abstract

FAUNMAP is an electronic database documenting the late Quaternary (Pleistocene and Holocene) distribution of mammal species in the United States, developed at the Illinois State Museum with support from the National Science Foundation. The primary purpose of the database is to investigate evolution of mammalian communities, although individual species distributions are readily examined. With a Geographic Information System (GIS), changes in the distributions of individual species and their effects upon mammal community composition can be documented for the late Quaternary. As of 1994, it included data from 2919 sites in the contiguous 48 states covering the last 40,000 years. The database is highly incomplete and does not represent the entire locality distribution of species, primarily because only a select few cultural resource management reports were included. The FAUN MAP database was queried for Antilocapra americana, the sole living representative of a once-extensive family of pecoran artiodactyls. GIS maps were generated showing the distribution of Antilocapra americana from the Wisconsinan through the Holocene and the modern extant range. These maps reveal Antilocapra americana has been consistently present throughout what early twentieth century mammalogists consider the species’ historic range, with only an occasional locality outside those boundaries. These latter localities can be correlated with short-term shifts in the distribution of the short-grass prairie eastern border or slight changes in the western limits of the species range.