What do the stable isotope composition of small mammal tissues reflect in semi-arid and arid environments? - Université Pierre et Marie Curie Accéder directement au contenu
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2015

What do the stable isotope composition of small mammal tissues reflect in semi-arid and arid environments?

Résumé

The stable isotope composition of small mammal tissues has the potential to provide excellent records of terrestrial palaeoclimate, because their remains are found in large abundances in the Quaternary record, and they have small home ranges. However, there is a lack of modern analogous studies on wild small mammal populations, meaning little is understood about their isotope ecology. In this paper we report the δ18O, δ13C and δ15N composition of modern Gerbillinae teeth and bone collagen from across a rainfall gradient in semi-arid and arid environments in NW Africa, to explore the influence of moisture availability and aridity on the isotope composition of small mammal tissues. The δ18O composition of the Gerbillinae teeth is strongly correlated with mean annual precipitation (MAP), because of the animals reliance on water from food. However, when MAP is ~≥600mm aridity has less of an influence on the δ18O of Gerbillinae teeth, and they appear to reflect the δ18O composition of local meteoric water. The δ13C of the Gerbillinae teeth and bone collagen are strongly correlated, even though both tissues reflect different temporal periods. There is a marked distinction between the C3 plants consumed by the gerbils in mesic and arid locations, however there is high variation in the δ13C composition of the tissues at some sites caused the highly localized microhabitat that the gerbils represent. The δ15N composition of the Gerbillinae bone collagen does not reflect aridity in this region, and instead reflects the δ15N composition of the diet.
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hal-03025764 , version 1 (26-11-2020)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03025764 , version 1

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Amy Jeffrey, Emmanuelle Stoetzel, Christiane Denys, Julia A Lee-Thorp. What do the stable isotope composition of small mammal tissues reflect in semi-arid and arid environments?. XIXth Congress of the International Union for Quaternary Science (INQUA), Jul 2015, Nagoya, Japan. ⟨hal-03025764⟩
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