Impact of Early and Middle Pleistocene major climatic events on the palaeoecology of Southern European ungulates

ABSTRACT

The Early and Middle Pleistocene were characterised by two major climatic events: the onset of the Quaternary glaciations and the Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition (EMPT) with glacial cycles changing their periodicity. The present study reviews recent research on the palaeoecological adaptations of Pleistocene ungulates from Mediterranean Europe following these global climatic changes, through an examination of dental wear patterns and hypsodonty indices of 27 fossil taxa from 4 key localities. Ungulates from Coste San Giacomo (2.1 Ma) adopted a wide range of feeding behaviours suggesting the presence of heterogeneous environments in the region. Following the gradual deterioration of climatic conditions and drier habitats ungulates display narrower diet ranges with no incidence of obligated browsers as attested at Olivola (~1.8 Ma). The diffusion of open habitats from the Early Pleistocene onwards is also reflected by the reduction of brachydont taxa. Discrepancy between dental mesowear and microwear patterns of Vallparadís Estació (~1.0–0.6 Ma) and Fontana Ranuccio (0.4 Ma) ungulates points to an increase in seasonality during the EMPT and after its consolidation. All examined taxa display dietary plasticity through the Early and Middle Pleistocene with even specialised groups, such as equids, showing a certain flexibility in their diet.

KEYWORDS:

• Palaeoecology
• mesowear
• microwear
• paleodiet
• artiodactyls
• perissodactyls

Acknowledgments

I’m grateful to Luciano Bruni, Elisabetta Cioppi and Marta March for their helpfulness during my PhD with material stored at the Italian Institute of Human Paleontology, the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence and the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont. I also thank Laura Sadori (Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Sapienza – Università di Roma) for providing access to the lab facilities where dental casts have been analyzed. I acknowledge Dr Ivan Calandra and the anonymous reviewer for the helpful comments that allowed me to improve the manuscript. I’m also grateful to editor Dr Gareth Dyke for granting me a deadline extension in light of current global Covid-19 emergency. Finally, I’m deeply thankful to Dr Daniel DeMiguel, Dr Luca Bellucci and Prof. Raffaele Sardella for their guidance during the development of my PhD thesis. Finally, I would like to thank Prof. Beatriz Azanza, Prof. Gina Semprebon and Prof. Raymond L. Bernor for their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by [FEDER Aragón 2014–2020] “Construyendo Europa desde Aragón” (“Extinción y reconstrucción paleoambiental desde el Cretácico al Cuaternario” Research Group E33_17R).