Paleoclimate and faunal evolution in the Plio-Pleistocene of Africa and South America

Quinteros, RB Behrensmeyer, AK Ormazabal, GC

AMEGHINIANA 41:4 641-649

PALEOCLIMATE AND FAUNAL EVOLUTION IN THE PLIO-PLEISTOCENE OF AFRICA AND SOUTH AMERICA. Climatic change is often hypothesized to be a major variable in forcing evolutionary change. Recent work on Pliocene and Pleistocene fossil mammals from the Turkana Basin of Kenya and Ethiopia shows that climate may play an important role in the spread of savanna environments, and thus in the increasing abundance of mammals adapted to open and seasonally and conditions. If global climate change is behind some of these trends in East Africa, we hypothesize that similar patterns of faunal change may occur elsewhere. An analysis of fossil mammals from the Pampean region of Argentina shows an increase in the number of species adapted to open and seasonally and conditions through the Plio-Pleistocene. The South American pattern is not identical to the East African pattern, but both show a significant increase in open and and adapted mammals shortly after 2 million years ago, at the very beginning of the Pleistocene. Although global climate change may be invoked as a common cause of these intercontinental trends, local and regional geography and tectonics play a critical role in modulating the global signal.

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