Hominins, sedges, and termites: new carbon isotope data from the Sterkfontein valley and Kruger National Park

Sponheimer, Matt; Lee‐Thorp, Julia A.; Ruiter, Darryl J. de; Codron, Daryl; Codron, Jacqui; Baugh, Alexander T.; Thackeray, J. Francis

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2004.11.008

Cited by 169 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

110

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This species is different from some early hominins, such as Australopithecus africanus, Paranthropus robustus and Paranthropus boisei in Africa (Figure 2). Stable carbon isotope evidence indicates that A. africanus from Makapansgat [14], Sterkfontein [15,17] and P. robustus from Swartkrans [12,15] in South Africa had a mixed diet of C 3 and C 4 biomass, and P. boisei from East Africa consumed a high proportion of C 4 biomass (almost 80% of its diet) [16,18]. The data indicate these early hominins could live in open habitats and consume a high proportion of C 4 biomass, consisting of tropical/ savannah grasses and certain sedges, and/or animal eating C 4 foods.…”

Section: Comparison To Extant Apes and Early Homininsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Analysis of stable carbon isotopes is a powerful method [9][10][11] for exploring the diet and habitat use of extinct herbivorous mammals, including early hominins in South and East Africa [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. This method is based on the fact that the carbon isotope composition is significantly different between plants that use different photosynthetic pathways, such as C 3 plants (  13 C from 22‰ to 35‰) and C 4 plants (from 8‰ to 16‰).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Enamel carbon isotope evidence of diet and habitat of Gigantopithecus blacki and associated mammalian megafauna in the Early Pleistocene of South China

Zhao

Zhang

et al. 2011

Chin. Sci. Bull.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Comparison To Extant Apes and Early Homininsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Enamel carbon isotope evidence of diet and habitat of Gigantopithecus blacki and associated mammalian megafauna in the Early Pleistocene of South China

Zhao

Zhang

et al. 2011

Chin. Sci. Bull.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Various lines of evidence (e.g., comparative primate studies, stable isotopes, dental microwear, etc.) suggest that australopithecines consumed a varied and opportunistic diet that was largely composed of plant foods, such as fruits, seeds, and leaves, and included an assortment of C 4 foods (e.g., grasses, sedges, and termites) (Teaford and Ungar, 2000;Sponheimer et al, 2005). Important dietary differences almost certainly existed between species, with certain later australopithecines (e.g., Australopithecus africanus) apparently expanding their dietary flexibility and breadth, and robust australopithecines (e.g., A.…”

Section: Diet Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Energetics of Encephalization in Early Hominids

Snodgrass

Leonard

Robertson

2009

The Evolution of Hominin Diets

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Bioenergetics, the study of the use and transfer of energy, can provide important insights into the ecology and evolution of early hominids. Despite a relatively large brain with high metabolic demands, contemporary humans and other primates have resting metabolic rates (RMRs) that are similar to those of other mammals. As a result, a comparatively large proportion of their resting energy budget is spent on brain metabolism among humans (~20-25%) and other primates (~8-10%) compared to other mammals (~3-5%). To understand this shift in energy budget, Aiello and Wheeler's Expensive Tissue Hypothesis (ETH) posits a metabolic trade-off-a reduction in gut size with brain size increase-to explain this phenomenon. Here, we explore the interrelationships between brain size, body size, diet, and body composition using comparative data for humans, non-human primates, and other mammals. Among living primates, the relative proportion of energy allocated to brain metabolism is positively correlated with dietary quality. Contemporary humans fall at the positive end of this relationship, having both a high quality diet and a large brain. Thus, high costs associated with the large human brain are supported, in part, by energy-rich diets. Although contemporary humans display relatively small guts, primates as a group have gut sizes that are similar to non-primate mammals. In contrast, humans and other primates have significantly less skeletal muscle for their size compared to other mammals. These comparative analyses suggest that alterations in diet quality and body composition were necessary conditions for overcoming the constraints on encephalization. Fossil evidence indicates that brain expansion with the emergence of Homo erectus at about 1.8 million years ago was likely associated with important changes in diet, body composition, and body size.

show abstract

“…Megadont hominins had greater quantities of molar enamel than expected [165], and may exhibit greater tolerance for fracture resistant foods [82,136,108]. This may have evolved in response to hard-object feeding, possibly on grass seeds [78] or plant USOs [176,93]. We assessed the relative impact of megadont dentition on predicted foraging choices for a 50 kg anthropoid primate with the enamel thickness of P. robustus (see Methods).…”

Section: Fitness-maximizing Foraging Decisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…African savanna-woodland environments [176,204]. Termites in mixed C 3 /C 4 environments [176] were used to model the 13 C values of an arthropod diet, and an adjustment of +9h was applied to account for the metabolic fractionation between termites and a hind-gut fermenting consumer ( 12 ± 2.1h).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dedication. Acknowledgments

2011

The Acquisition of German

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

xvii Dedication xixAcknowledgments xx . See panel C. for a scenario where one prey is preferred over another. C. A tri-trophic system, where a top-predator consumes a meso-predator, which in turn consumes two prey. The sizes of the nodes denote relative abundance, and the thickness of the arrows denote the magnitude of the biomass flow. The top-predator in the leftmost network is relatively abundant, depressing the meso-predator population, thereby limiting the meso-predator's e↵ect on the two prey populations. The two rightmost networks (boxed) have reduced top-predator populations. In both cases, the meso-predator has greater abundance due to decreased predation pressure. However, in one scenario, both prey are preferred equally, resulting in apparent competition dynamics. In the second scenario, one prey is preferred over another, resulting in an asymmetric cascade. Such preferences could result from specific anatomical constraints of the meso-predator, a scenario explored in Chapter 4. C 1 and C 2 , and 4 prey: r 1 r 4 ) is represented by both pairwise interaction distributions for each link, and a network-level interaction distribution for the system. Link thickness represents the median link-strength, shown with the vertical bar in each pairwise interaction distribution. B-C. Both model food-webs X and Y have link-strengths drawn from the NLID. In model food-web X, the weights are distributed similar to the median weights of the empirical web (i.e. equivalent structure), but they are distributed di↵erently among nodes (i.e. alternative interactions). In model Y , the weight structure is di↵erent than that of the empirical web (i.e. alternative structure), and necessarily, the distribution of weights among nodes di↵ers as well (i.e. alternative interactions). Dotted nodes indicate those with link-strengths that di↵er from the median link-strengths of the empirical food-web. D-F. Given a single niche axis based on a continuous resource trait (e.g. body size) where prey are ranked from r 1 to r 4 , distributions of resource use are shown for the two consumers. Representations of dietary overlap illustrate higher similarity in diet between predators of the empirical system and model X, whereas the consumers in model Y have little dietary overlap, despite sharing the same NLID. 5 A-C. Sensitivity analyses of the Saskatchewan, Amboseli, and Lake Naivasha food-web ensembles, respectively. Similarity values for each cuto↵ (s i ) for Model 2 are on the y-axis, and the x-axis ranges from a lower standard deviation (SD) than the empirical SD to a higher SD (such that the empirical SD is central to the range; stippled vertical line). The colored data points represent the median similarity indices for each cuto↵ value (legend), while the top and bottom whiskers denote the 25 th and 75 th percentiles, respectively. The underlined values mark the standard deviation corresponding to the highest average similarity across cuto↵ values. For all systems, the highest average similarity is close to or exactly matches ...

show abstract

Hominins, sedges, and termites: new carbon isotope data from the Sterkfontein valley and Kruger National Park

Cited by 169 publications

References 40 publications

Enamel carbon isotope evidence of diet and habitat of Gigantopithecus blacki and associated mammalian megafauna in the Early Pleistocene of South China

Enamel carbon isotope evidence of diet and habitat of Gigantopithecus blacki and associated mammalian megafauna in the Early Pleistocene of South China

The Energetics of Encephalization in Early Hominids

Dedication. Acknowledgments

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About