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Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region

Pleistocene South American megafauna has traditionally attracted the interest of scientists and the popular media alike. However, ecological interactions between the species that inhabited these ecosystems, such as predator-prey relationships or interspecific competition, are poorly known. To this r...

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Autores principales: Chichkoyan, Karina Vanesa, Figueirido, Borja, Belinchón, Margarita, Lanata, José Luis, Moigne, Anne-Marie, Martínez-Navarro, Bienvenido
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5426367/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28503369
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3117
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author Chichkoyan, Karina Vanesa
Figueirido, Borja
Belinchón, Margarita
Lanata, José Luis
Moigne, Anne-Marie
Martínez-Navarro, Bienvenido
author_facet Chichkoyan, Karina Vanesa
Figueirido, Borja
Belinchón, Margarita
Lanata, José Luis
Moigne, Anne-Marie
Martínez-Navarro, Bienvenido
author_sort Chichkoyan, Karina Vanesa
collection PubMed
description Pleistocene South American megafauna has traditionally attracted the interest of scientists and the popular media alike. However, ecological interactions between the species that inhabited these ecosystems, such as predator-prey relationships or interspecific competition, are poorly known. To this regard, carnivore marks imprinted on the fossil bones of megamammal remains are very useful for deciphering biological activity and, hence, potential interspecific relationships among taxa. In this article, we study historical fossil collections housed in different European and Argentinean museums that were excavated during the 19th and early 20th centuries in the Pampean region, Argentina, in order to detect carnivore marks on bones of megamammals and provide crucial information on the ecological relationships between South American taxa during the Pleistocene. Our results indicate that the long bones of megafauna from the Pampean region (e.g., the Mylodontidae and Toxodontidae families) exhibit carnivore marks. Furthermore, long bones of medium-sized species and indeterminate bones also present punctures, pits, scores and fractures. Members of the large-carnivore guild, such as ursids, canids and even felids, are recognised as the main agents that inflicted the marks. We hypothesize that the analysed carnivore marks represent the last stages of megaherbivore carcass exploitation, suggesting full consumption of these animals by the same or multiple taxa in a hunting and/or scavenging scenario. Moreover, our observations provide novel insights that help further our understanding of the palaeoecological relationships of these unique communities of megamammals.
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spelling pubmed-54263672017-05-12 Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region Chichkoyan, Karina Vanesa Figueirido, Borja Belinchón, Margarita Lanata, José Luis Moigne, Anne-Marie Martínez-Navarro, Bienvenido PeerJ Paleontology Pleistocene South American megafauna has traditionally attracted the interest of scientists and the popular media alike. However, ecological interactions between the species that inhabited these ecosystems, such as predator-prey relationships or interspecific competition, are poorly known. To this regard, carnivore marks imprinted on the fossil bones of megamammal remains are very useful for deciphering biological activity and, hence, potential interspecific relationships among taxa. In this article, we study historical fossil collections housed in different European and Argentinean museums that were excavated during the 19th and early 20th centuries in the Pampean region, Argentina, in order to detect carnivore marks on bones of megamammals and provide crucial information on the ecological relationships between South American taxa during the Pleistocene. Our results indicate that the long bones of megafauna from the Pampean region (e.g., the Mylodontidae and Toxodontidae families) exhibit carnivore marks. Furthermore, long bones of medium-sized species and indeterminate bones also present punctures, pits, scores and fractures. Members of the large-carnivore guild, such as ursids, canids and even felids, are recognised as the main agents that inflicted the marks. We hypothesize that the analysed carnivore marks represent the last stages of megaherbivore carcass exploitation, suggesting full consumption of these animals by the same or multiple taxa in a hunting and/or scavenging scenario. Moreover, our observations provide novel insights that help further our understanding of the palaeoecological relationships of these unique communities of megamammals. PeerJ Inc. 2017-05-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5426367/ /pubmed/28503369 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3117 Text en ©2017 Chichkoyan et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Paleontology
Chichkoyan, Karina Vanesa
Figueirido, Borja
Belinchón, Margarita
Lanata, José Luis
Moigne, Anne-Marie
Martínez-Navarro, Bienvenido
Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region
title Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region
title_full Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region
title_fullStr Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region
title_full_unstemmed Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region
title_short Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region
title_sort direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the pampean region
topic Paleontology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5426367/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28503369
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3117
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