Millennial-Scale Drivers of Small Mammal Isotopic Niche Dynamics in Southern California

Pleistocene paleoecology and feeding behavior of terrestrial vertebrates recorded in a pre-LGM asphaltic deposit at Rancho La Brea, California

“…Extant representatives of these small species have restricted home ranges and these specimens further confirm that the vegetation in the immediate vicinity of RLB was dominated by C 3 plant species at this time. Additional analysis of desert cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii) and brush rabbits (Sylvilagus bachmani) from Deposit 1 found a similar distribution of 14 C ages but highly variable δ 15 N values (Fox et al, 2017). This is not surprising as modern rabbits and those from archaeological contexts in Utah (Ugan and Coltrain, 2011) and Holocene rabbits from Idaho (Commendador and Finney, 2016) display a large range of δ 15 N values.…”