Feeding strategies of circum-Mediterranean hipparionins during the late Miocene: Exploring dietary preferences related to size through dental microwear analysis
Orlandi Oliveras, Guillem 1992- (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Köhler, Meike (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Clavel, Julien (Université Claude Bernard Lyon)
Scott, Robert S. (The State University of New Jersey. Department of Anthropology and Center for Human Evolutionary Studies)
Mayda, Serdar (Ege University. Department of Biology)
Kaya, Tanju
Merceron, Gildas (University of Poitiers)

Data:	2022
Resum:	The adaptive radiation of hipparionins after their Old World dispersal was linked with a trend towards smaller body sizes. The appearance of the small-sized forms has usually been associated to open environments and grazing diets. A recent approach, moreover, highlights the role of life history modifications related to habitat conditions as triggers of their size shifts. Here, we test the relationship between hipparionin size and diet analyzing the dental microwear textures of different-sized hipparionins from Vallesian and Turolian circum-Mediterranean localities. Our results show that hipparionins were mainly mixed-feeders and that there was no general link between body size and diet. However, we identified broader feeding spectra in western Mediterranean smaller forms and more specialized grazing diets in larger ones, a differentiation not found in the eastern Mediterranean hipparionins. At odds with the notion of more open habitats eastward, we detected a larger browsing component in eastern hipparionin diets. The consumption by extant equids of more woody browse during the dry season leads us to propose a greater seasonality as a possible cause. Considering the arguable role of external abrasives on the microwear, another interpretation might involve the presence of more grit in the eastern opener habitats. Interestingly, we found that sympatric hipparionins tend to have similar feeding habits, which points to the fact that their diets were influenced by the local environment. Our results, then, suggest that the small size of some hipparionins resulted from different selective pressures rather than to a general adaptation to increasing habitat opening.
Ajuts:	Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2020-117118GB-I00 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CGL2015-63777 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-960 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2016/FI_B00202
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials i que es distribueixin sota la mateixa llicència que regula l'obra original. Cal que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Hipparion ; Equidae ; Diet ; Body size ; Dental microwear texture analysis
Publicat a:	Palaeontologia electronica, Vol. 25, Issue 1 (April 2022) , art. 13, ISSN 1094-8074

DOI: 10.26879/990

45 p, 44.9 MB

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