September
3, 2018 by Christopher Packham, Phys.org report
Although
world-famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes prided himself on his
deductive prowess, in truth, a great many of his astounding observations
resulted from inductive reasoning, by which he arrived at conclusions about
events that he did not observe based on the evidence at hand. Similarly,
biologists, ecologists and paleontologists strive to describe the world that
existed before humans could observe or record it, based only on fossil
information. Via induction, they attempt to reconstruct the prevailing climate
during biological epochs, the dietary habits and behaviors of extinct animals,
and the lineages of creatures for which sparse fossil evidence is available.
When
Holmes examines the scene of a crime, he observes everything around him to collect
multiple data points from which to draw conclusions. Modern paleontology might
describe this as a multiproxy methodology, in which the analysis is
complemented by multiple sources of information. A recent multiproxy analysis
by an international collaborative of researchers has produced a vivid picture
of the dietary habits of extinct proboscideans in Central Chile, thereby also
informing a picture of South American microclimates that Holmes might approve
of.
Gompotheres
were elephant-like mammals that lived 12 to 1.6 million years ago during the
Miocene and Pliocene epochs. Chilean gompotheres were the only group of
proboscideans to reach South America, and survived to the end of the
Pleistocene. Biologists refer to gompotheres as "ecosystem engineers,"
animals that significantly modify their habitats. They strongly affect species
richness and geographic heterogeneity within their domains.
Paleontologists
have recognized an array of dietary categories based on the dental morphology
evidenced in fossils, including browsing, grazing and mixed feeding. However,
because dietary patterns are strongly influenced by the environment, dental
morphology alone may not provide enough evidence to
draw conclusions about dietary habits.
For the current study, the researchers analyzed multiple points of evidence to
determine the diets of Chilean gompotheres, including stable isotopes, dental
microwear, and dental calculus microfossils derived from molar fossils found at
30 Late Pleistocene sites.
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