Size Variation in the Rock Hyrax (Procavia capensis) and Late Quaternary Climatic Change in South Africa

Abstract

The average adult size of the rock hyrax varies greatly across South Africa. Regression analysis suggests that mean hyrax size is more closely linked to precipitation than to temperature, probably because precipitation has a much greater impact on preferred hyrax food plants. The relationship between mean size and precipitation is curvilinear, such that size increases up to about 700 mm/annum and declines thereafter. This parallels a tendency for less palatable grasses to replace more palatable ones where rainfall exceeds 700 mm/annum. In conjunction with other indicators of past climate, hyrax size variation can be used to reconstruct precipitation history near deeply stratified South African late Quaternary sites, including Elands Bay Cave, Die Kelders Cave 1, and Nelson Bay Cave.

Nuclear organization and morphology of cholinergic, putative catecholaminergic and serotonergic neurons in the brain of the rock hyrax, Procavia capensis

“…The rock hyrax, Procavia capensis, is a member of the Procaviidae family, which is the only living family within the Hyracoidea order (Klein and Cruz-Uribe, 1996). The family consists of three genera: Procavia (the rock hyrax, one species), Heterohyrax (two species) and Dendrohyrax (three species) (Skinner and Chimimba, 2005).…”

The Late Middle Pleistocene mammalian fauna of Oumm Qatafa Cave, Judean Desert: taxonomy, taphonomy and palaeoenvironment

“…The collection of Procavia capensis identified by us, contains 74 bones and teeth from Layers F ( n = 4), E1 ( n = 29), D2 ( n = 10), and also numerous specimens unassigned to layers ( n = 31). Hyrax body‐size gradients follow Bergmann's rule and have been used to track climatic changes in the Pleistocene record (Klein and Cruz‐Uribe 1996). A comparison of tooth measurements from OQ (SI1) with recent and Pleistocene measurements (Fig.…”

Size variation in Tachyoryctes splendens (East African mole-rat) and its implications for late Quaternary temperature change in equatorial East Africa

“…This is to prevent the handful of very well-sampled localities (e.g., Lake Naivasha, Mount Kenya) from disproportionately influencing the results. Because previous studies have demonstrated that size-climate relationships Faith et al 12 can be linear (Klein, 1986) or quadratic (Klein and Cruz-Uribe, 1996), both leastsquares linear and quadratic regressions are used here. For those size clines that are statistically significant, we conducted a breakpoint analysis using the maximum likelihood approach in the R package 'segmented' (see Muggeo, 2008) to identify possible changes in slope (i.e., breakpoints) indicative of environmental thresholds above or below which a size-cline is observed.…”

“…The best known of these relationships is Bergmann's Rule, which (broadly defined) proposes that populations living in cooler climates are larger than their conspecifics in warmer climates (Meiri and Dayan, 2003). Such relationships have long been studied by paleoecologists to reconstruct paleoclimate change in southern Africa from body size shifts of fossil carnivores and various small mammals (Avery, 1982(Avery, , 2004Klein, 1986Klein, , 1991Klein and Cruz-Uribe, 1996). Parallel research in East Africa is lacking, although Marean et al (1994) document potentially climate-mediated size shifts in the mandibular alveolar lengths of Holocene T. splendens from Enkapune ya Muto in Kenya's Central Rift Valley.…”