Regional impacts of global climate change: a local humid phase in central Iberia in a late Miocene drying world

Abstract

The end of the Miocene was an eventful period of changes in climate and geography, and a restructuring of terrestrial plant and mammals. The tendency towards global aridification has attracted much recent interest, making the late Miocene a striking case-study for testing current and near-future scenarios involving global warming. Little is known about the consequences of global changes in temperature and precipitation at regional or local scales. Given its geographical position and extraordinary fossil record, the Iberian Peninsula offers many insights into short-and longterm shifts in climate, and the local response. Here, we explore the diet and ecology of large-mammals through tooth-wear patterns, and examine changes in local climate and habitat conditions in central Spain in a period (9.1-6.3 Ma) for which there exists a dearth of palaeoenvironmental information. Relatively dry climates and open-woodland landscapes evolved locally during the late Vallesian and early Turolian (9.0-7.7 Ma). Unexpectedly, we detect a period of high precipitation and a peak of humidity at the end of the Turolian (7.0 Ma) that prompted the development of wetter, more forested habitats, suggesting that the traditional view of the late Miocene as a steppe landscape is a misconception. We also find a period of relatively drier and warmer conditions from the early Ventian onwards. Overall, our finding that a local episode of increased humidity in central Spain was synchronous with a global warming trend in Europe provides evidence that the greatest climatic changes may have an opposite impact at regional and local scales.

Tooth marker of ecological abnormality: The interpretation of stress in extinct mega herbivores (proboscideans) of the Siwaliks of Pakistan

“…The expansion of savannas replacing the tropical and subtropical forests is a characteristic of the Late Miocene (Cerling, Harris, Ambrose, et al, 1997 ; Cerling, Harris, MacFadden, et al, 1997 ). The Late Miocene of Himalayas foreland shifts from dominant vegetation of shrubs and trees towards open C 4 grasslands with a long term climatic drying after 7.7 Ma ago (Clift et al, 2020 ; DeMiguel et al, 2019 ; Merceron et al, 2004 ). This drying is also closely linked to global cooling (Liu & Jacques, 2010 ).…”

Dietary Adaptations of Early and Middle Pleistocene Equids From the Anagni Basin (Frosinone, Central Italy)

“…The method has been developed to examine the diet-related dental wear patterns in ungulates and has been successfully employed to investigate dietary adaptations of different groups of both modern and fossil artiodactyls and perissodactyls (Fortelius and Solounias, 2000;Schulz et al, 2007;DeMiguel et al, 2008DeMiguel et al, , 2011DeMiguel et al, , 2018Bernor et al, 2014;DeMiguel, 2016;Marín-Leyva et al, 2016;Maniakas and Kostopoulos, 2017). Dental mesowear also proved to be an optimal tool to study equid paleoecological adaptations, allowing to obtain information about the dietary change and evolution of this group from the early forms of the Eocene to the horses of the Pleistocene (Kaiser and Franz-Odendaal, 2004;Mihlbachler et al, 2011;Bernor et al, 2017).…”