Browsing and grazing in elephants: the isotope record of modern and fossil proboscideans

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Thure E. Cerling ; John M. Harris and Meave G. Leakey
• 关键词：Key words Elephants ; Diet ; Stable isotopes ; Browsing
• 刊名：Oecologia
• 出版年：1999
• 出版时间：August 1999
• 年：1999
• 卷：120
• 期：3
• 页码：364-374
• 全文大小：468 KB

文摘

The diet of extant elephants (Loxodonta in Africa, Elephas in Asia) is dominated by C₃ browse although some elephants have a significant C₄ grass component in their diet. This is particularly noteworthy because high-crowned elephantid cheek teeth represent adaptation to an abrasive grazing diet and because isotopic analysis demonstrates that C₄ vegetation was the dominant diet for Elephas in Asia from 5 to 1 Ma and for both Loxodonta and Elephas in Africa between 5–1 Ma. Other proboscideans in Africa and southern Asia, except deinotheres, also had a C₄-dominated diet from about 7 Ma (when the C₄ biomass radiated in tropical and subtropical regions) until their subsequent extinction.