Tracking the origins and diet of an endemic island canid (Urocyon littoralis) across 7300 years of human cultural and environmental change

Hofman, Courtney A.; Rick, Torben C.; Maldonado, Jesús E.; Collins, Paul W.; Erlandson, Jon M.; Fleischer, Robert C.; Smith, Chelsea M.; Sillett, T. Scott; Ralls, Katherine; Teeter, Wendy G.; Vellanoweth, René L.; Newsome, Seth D.

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.06.010

Cited by 32 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 74 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the past, coyotes did not consume marine foods in significant proportions, even at localities adjacent to mainland eared seal rookeries, such as Moss Landing (MNT-229 and MNT-234) and Año Nuevo (SMA-18). Past peoples (Bartelink, 2009;Beasley et al, 2013;Newsome et al, 2004), their dogs (Hofman et al, 2016), and California grizzly bears (Storer and Tevis, 1996) did, however, rely on marine resources and could have prevented coyotes from gaining access to a subsidy from the sea. The onset of heavy marine resource use by coyotes at Año Nuevo appears to have been delayed until marine mammal populations began to recover following the Marine Mammal Protection Act and designation of marine sanctuaries.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coyote (Canis latrans) use of marine resources in coastal California: A new behavior relative to their recent ancestors

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Coyotes (Canis latrans) are known to consume marine foods, but the importance and persistence of marine subsidies to coyotes is unknown. Recent access to a marine subsidy, especially if gained following apex predator loss, may facilitate coyote expansion along coastal routes and amplify the effects of mesopredator release. Our goal was to quantify and contextualize past and present marine resource use by coyotes on the central coast of California via stable isotope analysis. We measured δ 13 C and δ 15 N values in coyotes, their competitors, and their food resources at two modern sites, seven archaeological sites spanning in age from ~3000 to 750 BP, and from historical (AD 1893-1992) coyote and grizzly bear hair and bone sourced from coastal counties. We found evidence for marine resource use by modern coastal California coyotes at one site, Año Nuevo, which hosts a mainland northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) breeding colony. Seals and sea lions account for ~20% of Año Nuevo coyote diet throughout the year and this marine subsidy likely positively impacts coyote population size. Isotopic data suggest that neither historic nor prehistoric coyotes consumed marinederived foods, even at sites near ancient mainland seal rookeries. Marine resource use by some contemporary California coyotes is a novel behavior relative to their recent ancestors. We hypothesize that human alteration of the environment through extirpation of the California grizzly bear and the more recent protection of marine mammals likely enabled this behavioral shift.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coyote (Canis latrans) use of marine resources in coastal California: A new behavior relative to their recent ancestors

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The island fox remains are very interesting as foxes do not occur on the island today. Hofman et al (2016) directly dated this fox to 3200 to 3000 cal BP, or the same age as the CA-ANI-2 occupation, suggesting that it is not intrusive. It remains unclear if live foxes or their parts were transported from another island or, even more exciting, if there was an Anacapa population in the past.…”

Section: Historical Ecology Of Anacapa Islandmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…A few specimens identified as island fox (Urocyon littoralis, NISP = 6, 3.0%) were also recovered from CA-ANI-2. The island fox, endemic to the Channel Islands, is not currently found on any of the three sections of Anacapa Island (Hofman et al, 2016). Black-tailed deer dominate the terrestrial mammal specimens from CA-ANI-2 (NISP = 16, 69.6%).…”

Section: Vertebratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The vast majority of the samples that we dated were marine shells (i.e., California mussel or black abalone); other materials included one charcoal sample from CA-ANI-8 and one island fox bone from CA-ANI-2 dated by Hofman et al (2016). Sample provenience, laboratory identification numbers, and materials are summarized in Table 3.…”

Section: Dating Sample Selection Calibration and Bayesian Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Deception Island: Archaeology of ′Anyapax, Anacapa Island, California

Rick¹,

Reeder-Myers

Gobalet

et al. 2018

Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Archaeologists have long been interested in understanding the antiquity and evolution of human occupation of the world's islands, but relatively limited attention has been given to small islands. With evidence for human occupation at least 13,000 years ago, California's eight Channel Islands have a long record of coastal settlement and land use, but key questions remain about the smallest islands of Anacapa and Santa Barbara, each less than 3 km 2. This volume focuses on the archaeology of Anacapa Island by synthesizing data from excavation, survey, and radiocarbon dating on the island, particularly its eastern segment, during the past 15 years. Anacapa was occupied for at least 5,500 years through the Historic period and likely since the terminal Pleistocene or Early Holocene. People resided on the island during all seasons of the year, with several sites indicating occupation during the early part of the Late Holocene (~3,700 and 2,500 years ago). During this period on Anacapa, people were making bone fishhooks and expedient tools from locally obtained chert. Mammal, fish, and bird bones suggest intensive maritime harvest of a variety of animals, especially harbor seals, albatross, and California sheephead. Island fox bones document the only occurrence of this endemic species outside of the six largest islands. Numerous deer bones indicate trade/interaction with the mainland. Surprisingly, only a handful of gull bones were recovered despite the fact that scores of gulls breed on Anacapa today, suggesting shifts in the island's ecosystems during historical and modern times. People were also harvesting a variety of nearshore shellfish, especially California mussel, black abalone, and owl limpet. Although small in size and lacking abundant fresh water, the smallest Channel Islands have much to tell us about human prehistory and environmental change on the California coast and on other islands around the world. Cover image: Anacapa Island, as viewed looking west from Inspiration Point. Santa Cruz Island is visible in the distance on the far right. Photo by Torben C. Rick.

show abstract

“…The theory of over‐water dispersal is enjoying growing popularity among biogeographers, neontologists, and palaeontologists (de Queiroz, , ; Van den Hoek Ostende, Meijer & van der Geer, ; Ali & Huber, ; Van der Geer et al, ; Balme, ; Ceríaco et al, ; Hofman et al, , ; Leppard, ; Taylor, Myers & Hoffman, ; Van der Geer, Anastasakis & Lyras, ; Anderson et al, ; Beard, ; Duggins et al, ; Holcomb, ; O'Dea et al, ; Carlton et al, , ; Duffy & Vargas, ; Palombo, ). However, doubts are beginning to emerge (MacPhee & Iturralde‐Vinent, ; Tattersall, , ; Alonso, Crawford & Bermingham, ; Heads, ), especially concerning homeotherms such as mammals (Masters, De Wit & Asher, ; Stankiewicz et al, ; Masters, Lovegrove & De Wit, ; Mazza et al, ; Mazza, , ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grasping at straws: a re‐evaluation of sweepstakes colonisation of islands by mammals

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Natural rafting is an easy, non-evidence-based solution often used to explain the presence of a variety of species on isolated islands. The question arises as to whether this solution is based on solid scientific grounds. It is a plausible colonisation route only if intricate networks of variables are considered and many different conditions satisfied. This review provides a descriptive account of some of the most critical issues underlying the theory of natural rafting that should be addressed by its supporters. These include: (i) biological variables; (ii) characteristics of the vessels; and (iii) physical variables. Natural rafting may explain the dispersal of poikilotherms with low metabolic rates and low resource requirements that could withstand trans-oceanic crossings, but explaining the transport of homeothermic terrestrial mammals to oceanic islands is more problematic. Drifting at sea exposes organisms to high concentrations of salt, high temperature and humidity excursions, starvation, and above all to dehydration. A sufficiently large group of healthy reproductive individuals of the two sexes should either be transported together, or be able to reassemble after separate crossings, to prevent inbreeding, genetic drift and ultimately extinction. Any vessels of flotsam occupied must minimally provide the animals they transport with sufficient provisions to survive the journey, offer minimum friction and drag through water, and be transported by appropriately directed, sustained, high-speed currents. Thus, a 'sweepstakes colonisation' event would be the result of a lucky combination of all, or at least the majority, of these factors. Some cases throw doubt on the use of a natural rafting model to explain known animal colonisations, with one of the most striking examples being Madagascar. This island is far from the nearest mainland coasts and the sea currents in the Mozambique Channel are directed towards Africa rather than Madagascar, yet, the island was colonised by terrestrial mammals (e.g. extinct hippopotamuses, lemurs, carnivores, rodents and tenrecs) unable to swim and to survive long journeys at sea. In order to assess the feasibility of the natural rafting model in a case such as Madagascar, tests were performed using three variables for which enough information could be obtained from the literature: length of survival without food, survival without water, and sea current speed. The distributions of these variables appear to be log-normal and multiplicative, or follow a power-law, rather than being Gaussian. The tests suggest that a distributional analysis is a more suitable approach than the use of geometric probability to calculate the probabilities associated with the examined data. Such non-linear and self-organising systems may reach a critical point governed by different competing factors. Mammals with high survival requirements, such as lemurs and hippopotamuses, thus may have a virtually zero probability of reaching distant islands by natural rafting. Our results raise doubts as to the va...

show abstract

Tracking the origins and diet of an endemic island canid (Urocyon littoralis) across 7300 years of human cultural and environmental change

Cited by 32 publications

References 74 publications

Coyote (Canis latrans) use of marine resources in coastal California: A new behavior relative to their recent ancestors

Coyote (Canis latrans) use of marine resources in coastal California: A new behavior relative to their recent ancestors

Deception Island: Archaeology of ′Anyapax, Anacapa Island, California

Grasping at straws: a re‐evaluation of sweepstakes colonisation of islands by mammals

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About