Dataset Information

The Great American Biotic Interchange revisited: a new perspective from the stable isotope record of Argentine Pampas fossil mammals.

ABSTRACT: This study aims at assessing resource and habitat use, niche occupation and trophic interactions from a stable isotope perspective on fossil mammals from the Argentine Pampas during the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI). We present stable isotope data of more than 400 samples belonging to 10 mammalian orders and spanning a temporal range from ~9.5?Ma to ~12 ky. Rodents, notoungulates and pilosians record an increase in the consumption of C₄ plants, whereas litopterns and cingulates show ?¹³C values that remain mostly within a C₃-dominated diet. Our stable isotope data indicates that the expansion of C₄ vegetation opened up new niche opportunities, probably alleviating resource competition among endemic taxa. Gomphothere, equid and camelid ?¹³C records show a broad variability pointing to consumption of C₃ and mixed C₃-C₄ vegetation. This flexible dietary behavior may have facilitated the successful settlement of immigrant groups in South America. In the case of carnivorous taxa, Late Miocene pre-GABI endemic sparassodonts consumed prey from C₃ environments, whereas immigrant carnivorans preferred prey from mixed C₃-C₄ areas. Our research contributes to the study of the GABI from a different perspective as stable isotope records permit to characterize, from a (semi)quantitative standpoint, ecological traits within extinct fauna.

SUBMITTER: Domingo L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6994648 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Great American Biotic Interchange revisited: a new perspective from the stable isotope record of Argentine Pampas fossil mammals.

Domingo Laura L Tomassini Rodrigo L RL Montalvo Claudia I CI Sanz-Pérez Dánae D Alberdi María Teresa MT

Scientific reports 20200131 1

This study aims at assessing resource and habitat use, niche occupation and trophic interactions from a stable isotope perspective on fossil mammals from the Argentine Pampas during the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI). We present stable isotope data of more than 400 samples belonging to 10 mammalian orders and spanning a temporal range from ~9.5 Ma to ~12 ky. Rodents, notoungulates and pilosians record an increase in the consumption of C<sub>4</sub> plants, whereas litopterns and cingul ...[more]

PMID: 32005879

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Project description:Agriculture is facing a major challenge nowadays: to increase crop production for food and energy while preserving ecosystem functioning and soil quality. Argentine Pampas is one of the main world producers of crops and one of the main adopters of conservation agriculture. Changes in soil chemical and physical properties of Pampas soils due to different tillage systems have been deeply studied. Still, not much evidence has been reported on the effects of agricultural practices on Pampas soil microbiomes. The aim of our study was to investigate the effects of agricultural land use on community structure, composition and metabolic profiles on soil microbiomes of Argentine Pampas. We also compared the effects associated to conventional practices with the effects of no-tillage systems. Our results confirmed the impact on microbiome structure and composition due to agricultural practices. The phyla Verrucomicrobia, Plactomycetes, Actinobacteria, and Chloroflexi were more abundant in non cultivated soils while Gemmatimonadetes, Nitrospirae and WS3 were more abundant in cultivated soils. Effects on metabolic metagenomic profiles were also observed. The relative abundance of genes assigned to transcription, protein modification, nucleotide transport and metabolism, wall and membrane biogenesis and intracellular trafficking and secretion were higher in cultivated fertilized soils than in non cultivated soils. We also observed significant differences in microbiome structure and taxonomic composition between soils under conventional and no-tillage systems. Overall, our results suggest that agronomical land use and the type of tillage system have induced microbiomes to shift their life-history strategies. Microbiomes of cultivated fertilized soils (i.e. higher nutrient amendment) presented tendencies to copiotrophy while microbiomes of non cultivated homogenous soils appeared to have a more oligotrophic life-style. Additionally, we propose that conventional tillage systems may promote copiotrophy more than no-tillage systems by decreasing soil organic matter stability and therefore increasing nutrient availability.

Dataset Information

The Great American Biotic Interchange revisited: a new perspective from the stable isotope record of Argentine Pampas fossil mammals.

Publications

The Great American Biotic Interchange revisited: a new perspective from the stable isotope record of Argentine Pampas fossil mammals.

Similar Datasets

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