期刊
PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY
卷 393, 期 -, 页码 122-134出版社
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2013.11.011
关键词
Atapuerca; Early-Middle Pleistocene; Resource availability; large herbivores; Ungulates
资金
- Junta de Castilla y Leon
- Fundacion Atapuerca
- INAEM
- MICINN [CGL2006-13532-C03-02, CGL2009-12703-C03-01/02/03]
- University of Zaragoza
- MINECO [CGL2012-38434-C03-02, CGL2012-38358, SGR2009-324]
- Spanish MICINN
Large herbivore carrying capacity, that is, the maximum biomass of large herbivorous mammals that an ecosystem is able to sustain for the long term, is a key factor in ecosystems trophic dynamics. The carrying capacity of Pleistocene ecosystems conditioned the survival opportunities and colonization capabilities of hominin populations in Europe. In this study, we use the amphibian and squamate record of two Early and Middle Pleistocene sites from Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain) to obtain estimates of past temperature and rainfall values. A function derived from the analysis of a wide set of recent mammalian communities is used to infer the large herbivore carrying capacity of the Atapuerca ecosystems during the Pleistocene from those climatic variables. This function provides reliable estimates of large herbivore carrying capacity in open environments but not in forest communities. The results presented in this study indicate that carrying capacity was higher at Atapuerca during most of the sequence than in the present Our data also suggest that in most Mediterranean ecosystems, large herbivore biomass is currently below the carrying capacity of the environment due to the relatively low diversity of the large herbivore guild in most recent communities. Although the carrying capacity was high at Atapuerca in the periods the area was occupied by humans, it was also high in other periods for which no evidence of human presence has been recorded. Thus, the relationship between human occupation of the territory and carrying capacity does not appear to be simple. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据