Faunal and environmental change in the late Miocene Siwaliks of northern Pakistan

Barry, John C.; Morgan, Michèle E.; Flynn, Lawrence J.; Pilbeam, David; Behrensmeyer, Anna K.; Raza, S. Mahmood; Khan, Imran; Badgley, Catherine; Hicks, Jason F.; Kelley, Jay

doi:10.1666/0094-8373(2002)28[1:faecit]2.0.co;2

Cited by 434 publications

(310 citation statements)

References 76 publications

(169 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

299

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These intervals were calculated on the basis of sample size by calculating the probability of fi nding a taxon in preceding (or succeeding) localities given the proportion in the locality where it was fi rst (or last) recorded, and using a cut-off value of 80% (ref. 7). The same procedures were applied to range gaps.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-period astronomical forcing of mammal turnover

Dam¹,

Aziz²,

Sierra³

et al. 2006

Nature

246

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mammals are among the fastest-radiating groups, being charac terized by a mean species lifespan of the order of 2.5 million years Changes in organisms occur on a variety of temporal scales. Four basic temporal scales (tiers) have been recognized: the ecological timescale; the Milankovitch timescale of precession (the wobbling of the Earth's axis, �21 kyr periodicity), obliquity (tilt of the Earth's axis, 41 kyr periodicity) and eccentricity (the orbit around the Sun, � 100 and �400 kyr periodicity); the million-year timescale of species extinctions and originations; and the ultra-long timescale of mass extinctions and major taxonomic replacements9. Although the main processes controlling the fi rst tier (climate change and competition), the second tier (climate-forced distributional vari ation)3,9,IO and the fourth tier (catastrophic perturbations of the Earth's biosphere) are reasonably well defi ned, the mechanisms underlying third-tier processes are not well ill1derstood. Mammals have featured importantly in discussions on the processes pertaining to this tier2-7• Because their mean species duration is estimated at 2.3-2.6 Myr (refs 1, 2), primary (20-400kyr) Milankovitch vari ations cannot be held responsible for mammal speciation and extinction4,9,lo. It has been suggested that amplitude changes of climatic oscillations could have played a part in explaining turn over3,1O, but until now no efforts have been made systematically to compare such amplitude variations with turnover in long and well dated records.We compiled a data set of more than 200 rodent assemblages from Central Spain (see Supplementary Notes and Supplementary Ta ble 1) and analysed it in terms of turnover. The record is exceptionally long (22 Myr) , largely continuous, dense and well dated. We focused on rodents, because screen sieving allows the collection of large amounts of easily identifi able dental elements. The studied fossils originate from fl uvio-Iacustrine sections in the Madrid, Calatayud-Daroca and Te ruel basins, and amount to over 80,000 isolated molars, which were identifi ed at the species and lineage level (132 lineages, pseudo extinctions ignored). All studied localities are positioned in strati graphic sections, a large number of which have been tied to the geomagnetic polarity timescale by first-order correlations. The complete temporal sequence was calibrated to the new astronomi cally tuned timescale for the Neogene11 (Supplementary Fig. 1). The use of this new timescale is of crucial importance because it allows a direct comparison -with time series of the Earth's orbital parameters outlined above.Randomization procedures were used to capture uncertainties in the ages oflocalities (by the generation of a series of equally probable age models) and of fi rst and last rodent appearances, resulting in 1,000 equally probable time series. Sample size effects on the presence or absence of rodents were observed to be fairly small and were further reduced by inferring lineage presence on a range-through basis and by excluding...

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-period astronomical forcing of mammal turnover

Dam¹,

Aziz²,

Sierra³

et al. 2006

Nature

246

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…using a range-through approach (Barry et al, 2002;Van Der Meulen et al, 2005) to estimate the ranges of taxa by closing all gaps shorter than 500 kyr (cf. grey cells in Supplementary Table 2).…”

Section: Database For Precipitation Estimates and Published Palaeoprementioning

confidence: 99%

Miocene precipitation in Europe: Temporal trends and spatial gradients

Böhme

Winklhofer²,

Ilg

2011

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

133

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is known from present-day climates that both temporal and spatial variations in precipitation can be more pronounced than those in temperature and thus influence ecosystems and human society in more substantial way. However, very little is known about such variations in the past. Here we present an analysis of 206 palaeoprecipitation data from two twelve million year long proxy records of precipitation for Southwest (Calatayud-Teruel basin) and Central Europe (Western and Central Paratethys), spanning the late Early and Middle to Late Miocene (17.8-5.3 Ma) at a temporal resolution of about 80 kyr and 200 kyr, respectively. The estimates of precipitation are based on the ecophysiological structure of herpetological assemblages. The results show that precipitation variations in both regions have large amplitudes during the Miocene with comparable temporal trends at longer time scales. With locally 300 mm up to more than 1000 mm more rainfall per year than present, the early Langhian and the Tortonian were relatively wet periods, whereas the late Langhian and late Serravallian were relatively dry, with up to 300 to 500 mm less precipitation than present. The most humid time intervals were the early and middle Tortonian washhouse climate periods. Overall, our data suggest that the latitudinal precipitation gradient in Europe from the Middle to Late Miocene were highly variable, with a general tendency towards a reduced gradient relative to present day values. The gradient decreases during cooling periods and increases during warming periods, similar to results from simulations of future climate change. Interestingly, the precipitation gradient was reversed during the second washhouse climate period and the Early Messinian, which may have causes a negative hydrologic balance in the Eastern Paratethys during the latter time. Yet, our reconstructed gradient curve shows no direct correlation with the global temperature signal from oxygen isotopes, which implies a non-linear regional response. Our results further suggest that major fluctuations in the precipitation gradient can be responsible for shifts in ecosystem distribution, and particularly, for faunal turnover in South Western Europe.

show abstract

“…Resolving these divergent views requires long fossil records with high temporal and taxonomic resolution, as well as faunal and climatic data from the same geohistorical system. The Siwalik record of northern Pakistan is the longest, best documented sequence of terrestrial mammalian faunas of the last 20 myr (11). Multiple lines of geologic, isotopic, and ecomorphological evidence from this continuous record of floodplain ecosystems reveal the responses of mammalian herbivores to climatically mediated vegetation changes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Siwalik Group consists of alluvial sediments shed from the southern margin of the Himalayas over much of the Neogene. A well exposed sequence in the Potwar Plateau, south of Islamabad, Pakistan, has been studied by an interdisciplinary team of geologists and paleontologists for Ͼ30 years (11). In this area, Siwalik sediments Ͼ 4,000-m thick range from 18 to 1 Ma.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mammalian remains, documented by Ͼ50,000 catalogued specimens, dominate this fossil record. Major groups include common artiodactyls, perissodactyls, and rodents; uncommon primates, carnivores, and proboscideans; and rare creodonts, lagomorphs, aardvarks, and tree shrews (11). Surface collecting and screen washing have yielded substantial samples of large and small mammals, respectively.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation