A bat guano deposit in Jamaica recorded agricultural changes and metal exposure over the last >4300 years

Reconstructing Long-Term Changes in Avian Populations Using Lake Sediments: Opening a Window Onto the Past

“…Lacustrine environments (i.e., standing water) are preferred, as the sediments tend to accumulate chronologically with minimal mixing, in contrast to those in fluvial environments (i.e., running water) (Smol, 2008). There is also a limited but growing body of literature using similar paleolimnological approaches on peat (Outridge et al, 2016;Davidson et al, 2018;Groff et al, 2020), directly from nests (Burnham et al, 2009), and on guano deposits themselves (Nocera et al, 2012;Gallant et al, 2020Gallant et al, , 2021. Next, the sample is collected using a sediment corer, which, in its simplest form, is a tube inserted into the sediment to retrieve an undisturbed vertical profile of sediment [see Glew et al (2001) for a detailed overview].…”

“…Afterward, work from Cape Vera (Devon Island, Nunavut) in the Canadian High Arctic successfully expanded the field by demonstrating the utility of a variety of proxies that could be successfully used to reconstruct seabird numbers with sediments, including contaminants, stable isotopes (e.g., δ 15 N), invertebrate subfossils, and lipid biomolecules (Blais et al, 2007;Evenset et al, 2007a,b;Michelutti et al, 2009Michelutti et al, , 2011Cheng et al, 2016Cheng et al, , 2021. Since these studies, the use of sedimentary archives in biovector work has rapidly expanded to other organisms (e.g., Navarro et al, 2017;Gallant et al, 2020) and spatially to other regions (Supplementary Table 1).…”

A 4,300‐year History of Dietary Changes in a Bat Roost Determined From a Tropical Guano Deposit

“…Fresh bat guano samples were analyzed for organic carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes following the protocol in Gallant, Grooms, et al. (2020). Guano samples were not acidified for organic δ 13 C because values (mean ± SD) in a paired subset of acidified (−24.8 ± 0.5‰, n = 10) and unacidified (−25.2 ± 0.4‰, n = 10) bat guano samples, were essentially identical.…”

Pollen assemblage and environmental DNA changes: A 4300-year-old bat guano deposit from Jamaica

“…For the HOM core, we also used 210 Pb dates calculated using the constant rate of supply (CRS) model with corroboration by 137 Cs activity. At the HOM core, at 14.5 cm, there was a 580-year difference between the 210 Pb date (1900 CE) and the calibrated 14 C date (1320 CEfor details see Gallant et al, 2020). Such a difference may be related to two things: either to the dissolution of the limestone cave onto the bat guano deposit, leading to the presence of the old carbon (lacking 14 C) or/and to the specific bat diet, where bats preying on aquatic insects can incorporate old carbon from their environment.…”

“…Such a difference may be related to two things: either to the dissolution of the limestone cave onto the bat guano deposit, leading to the presence of the old carbon (lacking 14 C) or/and to the specific bat diet, where bats preying on aquatic insects can incorporate old carbon from their environment. That is why a 580-year reservoir effect was applied to the HOM core (Gallant et al, 2020). After accounting for this effect, the oldest layer at HOM (128.5 cm) reached 2307 BC, thus making this bat guano deposit ca.…”