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The Palaeontology of Browsing and Grazing

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The Ecology of Browsing and Grazing II

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 239))

Abstract

Large herbivorous mammals have a long history of adaptation to changing environmental circumstances. Many groups of mammalian herbivores started as omnivores and opportunistic browsers of fruits and other plant parts, later adapting to increasingly specialised leaf browsing, and finally to grazing as open grass-dominated environments spread following climatic cooling and drying during the Neogene. Changes in global climate led to vegetational changes in terrestrial ecosystems, which resulted in changes in the proportions of browsing and grazing species in the ungulate guilds. There is currently a range of proxy methods to assess diets and feeding ecology of large extinct herbivorous mammals, including dental microwear and mesowear analyses and stable isotope analyses. Together these methods have enabled an increasingly diverse and fine-scale understanding of the dietary variation of herbivorous mammals throughout the Cenozoic, providing a more detailed picture than traditional comparative ecomorphology approaches alone. This chapter will provide an up-to-date assessment of the analytical methods of determining the diet of extinct large herbivorous mammal taxa, and provide insights into changes in the assemblages of browsing and grazing mammals and how these relate to changes to climate and the evolution of different plant forms.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation for funding my work as a post doc researcher in the Natural History Museum of London during this work. I would also like to thank Christine Janis and Iain Gordon for their constructive suggestions which helped me improve this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Natural History Museum, London, UK

    Juha Saarinen

  2. University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Juha Saarinen

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Tropical Environment & Societies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, Australia

    Iain J. Gordon

  2. Animal Sciences Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Herbert H. T. Prins

Glossary

Cenozoic

the last ca. 66 million years that started from the end-Cretaceous mass extinction and continues today. The Cenozoic is characterized by a warm and humid beginning followed by mostly cooling and drying global climate, which led to the spread of open, arid environments and grasslands. It is also the time when mammals diversified and filled the ecological niches of large terrestrial herbivores.

Neogene

ca. 23–2.6 million years ago, during which climatic cooling and drying led to increasing coverage of grass-dominated open habitats in many parts of the world, driving the evolution of adaptations to grazing in many lineages of herbivorous mammals.

Pleistocene

ca. 2.6 million years to ca. 11,000 years ago, until the present warm-climatic stage. This was the time of the ice ages characterized by strong cyclic variations in climate, environments and the distribution of plants and animals in the northern hemisphere.

Mesowear

dietary analysis method applicable to present and fossil mammals, based on the wear-induced shape of the occlusal surface of molar teeth. It indicates the amount of grass (in relation to browse) in diet.

Microwear

dietary analysis method based on microscopic wear marks on tooth enamel, which reflect the relative amounts of grass, browse, seeds and other dietary items during the last days of an animal’s life.

Bunodont

tooth morphology type where the cusps are separate and not fused or connected by elongated ridges.

Lophodont

tooth morphology type where the cusps are elongated and connected into long cutting ridges (lophs).

Plagiolophodont

derived lophodont tooth morphology where the lophs are folded and fused to form a flat occlusal surface with shearing enamel edges, often supported by extensive dental cement that covers the tooth crown.

Selenodont

tooth morphology type where the cusps have been elongated into crescent-shaped cutting blades. This is the typical tooth morphology of ruminants and camels.

Bilophodont

tooth morphology type where anterior and posterior cusp pairs have been fused into two transverse cutting lophs.

Loxodont

tooth morphology type where the amount of transverse cutting lophs has been multiplied to form an efficient shearing surface with multiple enamel ridges, often supported by extensive dental cement between the lamellae.

Hypsodont

a relatively high tooth crown, as opposed to Brachydont which refers to a relatively short crown.

Perissodactyla

odd-toed ungulates, including horses (Equidae), rhinoceroses (Rhinocerotidae), tapirs (Tapiridae) and many extinct families such as chalicotheres (Chalicotheriidae), brontotheres (Brontotheriidae), paleotheres (Palaeotheriidae), hyracodonts (Hyracodontidae) and amynodonts (Amynodontidae).

Artiodactyla

even-toed ungulates, including ruminants (Ruminantia), camels (Camelidae), pigs (Suidae), peccaries (Tayassuidae), hippopotami (Hippopotamidae) and many extinct families such as anthracotheres (Anthracotheriidae), entelodont (Entelodontidae) and oreodonts (Merycoidodontidae).

Proboscidea

the mammal order that comprises elephants and their fossil relatives

Xenarthra

the mammal order containing sloths, armadillos, anteaters and their fossil relatives such as glyptodonts and ground sloths.

Notoungulata

an extinct order of endemic South American ungulates.

Litopterna

an extinct order of endemic South American ungulates.

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Saarinen, J. (2019). The Palaeontology of Browsing and Grazing. In: Gordon, I., Prins, H. (eds) The Ecology of Browsing and Grazing II. Ecological Studies, vol 239. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25865-8_2

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