Ruminant diets and the Miocene extinction of European great apes

Gildas Merceron; Thomas M. Kaiser; Dimitris S. Kostopoulos; Ellen Schulz

doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.0523

Ruminant diets and the Miocene extinction of European great apes

Gildas Merceron ^{1, *} Thomas M. Kaiser ² Dimitris S. Kostopoulos ³ Ellen Schulz ²

* Corresponding author

1 PP - Paléoenvironnement et paléobiosphère

2 Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Museum

3 School of Geology, Thessaloniki

Abstract : Successful evolutionary radiations of European hominoids and pliopithecoids came to an end during the Late Miocene. Using ruminant diets as environmental proxies, it becomes possible to detect variations in vegetation over time with the potential to explain fluctuations in primate diversity along a NW-SE European transect. Analysis shows that ruminants had diverse diets when primate diversity reached its peak, with more grazers in eastern Europe and more browsers farther west. After the drop in primate diversity, grazers accounted for a greater part of western and central European communities. Eastwards, the converse trend was evident with more browsing ruminants. These opposite trends indicate habitat loss and an increase in environmental uniformity that may have severely favoured the decline of primate diversity.

Keywords : biodiversity hominoids Neogene environmental dynamics ungulates

Document type :

Journal articles

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Royal Society, The, 2010, 277 (1697), pp.3105-3112. <10.1098/rspb.2010.0523>

Domain :

Life Sciences [q-bio] / Biodiversity / Populations and Evolution [q-bio.PE]

https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00687256
Contributor : Margaret Lartaud <>
Submitted on : Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 4:51:37 PM
Last modification on : Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 11:06:52 AM

Ruminant diets and the Miocene extinction of European great apes

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