Late Miocene–Early Pliocene climatic evolution of the Granada Basin (southern Spain) deduced from the paleoecology of the micromammal associations

Late Messinian mollusks and vertebrates from Moncucco Torinese, north-western Italy. Paleoecological and paleoclimatological implications

“…The very abundant and varied remains of these animals have been the subject of past detailed analyses Colombero et al, 2014bColombero et al, , 2015. We follow Martín-Suárez et al (2001), López Antoñanzas andCuenca Bescos (2002) andGarcía Alix et al (2008), in order to define the criteria of assignment of the paleocological requirements of small mammals. The Habitat Weighting Method, which is related to the Taxonomic Habitat Index and Weighting Average methods (Evans et al, 1981;Andrews, 2006;Blain et al, 2008) has been used to avoid excessively restricted habitat assignments to the extinct small mammal taxa.…”

“…The frequency of each HS was assessed adding up the values obtained by multiplying the relative abundances of each taxon by the score assigned to that taxon in that HS. We measured the relative abundances of the small mammals on the base of the nNISP (normalized Number of Identified Specimens) (see García-Alix et al, 2008). This methodology is devised to limit the overrepresentation of the taxa: the number of specimens of each small mammal taxon is divided by the number of the potential diagnostic elements of each taxon as follows: Leporidae, 28 derived from 26 dental elements (I2 excluded) plus two astragali; Ochotonidae, 24 dental elements (I2 excluded); Parasorex aff.…”

Micromammal faunas from the Mio-Pliocene boundary in the Alcoy Basin (SE Spain): biostratigraphical and palaeoecological inferences

“…For these analysis, some authors have proposed a minimum sample size of at least 100 specimens (Daams et al 1999, García-Alix et al 2008d, while others used a minimum of 50 specimens (Casanovas-Vilar & Agustí 2007), arguing that in most cases the bigger samples only add one or two new species to the assemblage, and the abundance of these new species is less than 1%. The locality of AC-0 has yielded 91 identifiable specimens, whereas in the other localities the sample is too scarce to perform a proper analysis.…”

“…Traditionally the genera Eliomys and Muscardinus have been considered wet environment indicators (see García-Alix et al 2008d, and references therein), but Freudenthal et al (2014) state that these taxa cannot be considered as indicators of humidity based on their current distribution.…”

“…Regarding the habitat, most of the taxa from AC-0 are eurytopic (Table 4) except Ruscinomys, which indicate open environments, and A. gibberodon and Muscardinus, which are associated with forested habitats (García-Alix et al 2008d. The genus Eliomys is a habitat generalist, with extant representatives ranging from environments with a moderate forest cover and a high annual precipitation to open semi-desertic environments .…”