HR: 0800h
AN: GC51D-1075    [Abstracts]
TI: Climatic Effects on Mammalian Body Size During the African Plio-Pleistocene
AU: * Reynolds, S C
EM: reynoldsc@anatomy.wits.ac.za
AF: University of the Witwatersrand, Department of Anatomical Sciences, 7 York Road, Parktown, Johannesburg, Johannesburg, 2193 South Africa
AU: * Reynolds, S C
EM: reynoldsc@anatomy.wits.ac.za
AF: Liverpool John Moores University, School of Biological and Earth Sciences, James Parsons Building, Byrom Street, Liverpool, Liverpool, L3 3AF United Kingdom
AB: Climatic and environmental differences cause geographic patterns of larger versus smaller body sizes (size clines) in certain extant mammals, such as the spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) and the Plains zebra (Equus burchellii). Likewise, body size changes seen in fossil specimens of these taxa from East and southern African Plio-Pleistocene sites are presumed to have climatic and environmental causes. This paper examines body size changes in these two taxa from key fossil sites in East Africa (Olduvai Beds I-IV, East Turkana and Olorgesailie) and southern Africa (Swartkrans, Sterkfontein and Kromdraai) to assess the nature and extent of body size changes. The differences between modern size variation and fossil size variation will be discussed. Results indicate that body sizes of fossil conspecifics in the focal taxa do not follow the pattern of geographic variation seen in modern conspecifics. Climatic and environmental changes may explain these differences, in particular that shifts in the East African region during the Plio-Pleistocene were greater than contemporaneous changes in southern Africa.
DE: 9305 Africa
DE: 0400 Biogeosciences
SC: Global Climate Change [GC]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting