Carnivore stable carbon isotope niches reflect predator–prey size relationships in African savannas

作     者：Jacqueline CODRON Nico L AVENANT Corli WIGLEY-COETSEE Daryl CODRON 

作者机构：Mammalogy DepartmentNational MuseumBloemfonteinSouth Africa Florisbad Quaternary Research DepartmentNational MuseumBloemfonteinSouth Africa Centre for Environmental ManagementUniversity of the Free StateBloemfonteinSouth Africa Scientific ServicesSANParksSkukuzaSouth Africa School of Natural Resource ManagementNelson Mandela UniversityGeorge CampusSouth Africa Institute for GeosciencesPalaeontology/Sclerochronology Research GroupJohannes Gütenberg UniversityMainzGermany 

出 版 物：《Integrative Zoology》 (整合动物学（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2018年第13卷第2期

页      面：166-179页

核心收录：

学科分类：07[理学] 0701[理学-数学] 070101[理学-基础数学] 

基　　金：This research was funded by the NRF-DST Centre of Excellence in Palaoesciences at the University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg and the National Research Foundation’s African Origins Platform(grant no.98836) 

主　　题：body mass carbonate collagen hair pleistocene 

摘      要：Predator-prey size relationships are among the most important patterns underlying the structure and function of ecological ***,these relationships have already been shown to be important for understanding patterns of macroevolution and differential extinction in the terrestrial vertebrate fossil *** isotope analysis(SIA)is a powerful remote approach to examining animal diets and *** approach is based on the principle that isotope compositions of consumer tissues reflect those of their *** systems where resource isotope compositions are distributed along a body size gradient,SIA could be used to reconstruct predator-prey size *** analyzed stable carbon isotope distributions amongst mammalian herbivores in extant and Plio-Pleistocene African savanna assemblages,and show that the range ofδ^(13)C values among mammalian prey species(herbivores and rodents)increases with body mass(BM),because C_(4) plant feeding(essentially grazing)is more common among larger ***,δ^(13)C values of mammalian carnivores in these systems are related to species’BM,reflecting a higher average C_(4) prey component in the diets of larger-bodied *** pattern likely emerges because only the largest carnivores in these systems have regular access to the C_(4) prey base,whereas smaller carnivores do ***δ^(13)C-BM relationship observed in mammalian carnivores is a potentially powerful approach for reconstructing and parameterizing predator-prey size relationships in contemporary and fossil savanna assemblages,and for interpreting how various behavioral,ecological and environmental factors influence prey size selection.