Stable isotope analysis of carnivores from the Turkana Basin, Kenya: Evidence for temporally-mixed fossil assemblages

Hopley, Philip J.; Cerling, Thure E.; Crété, Lucile; Werdelin, Lars; Mwebi, Ogeto; Manthi, Fredrick K.; Leakey, L. S. B.

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2022.04.004

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 111 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The lion's δ 13 C enamel is nearly 3 higher than that of the leopard, indicating that it focused more on grazing prey while the leopard consumed more browsers. A similar difference in δ 13 C enamel between leopard and lion is observed in a modern felid dataset from Turkana Basin (Kenya; Hopley et al, 2022).…”

Section: Carnivore δ 13 C Enamelsupporting

confidence: 71%

“…Most African felids have low water needs and receive their moisture from the metabolic water of their prey (Bothma and Walker, 2013), but drink water from waterholes when it is available (Wilson and Mittermeier, 2009;Hayward and Hayward, 2012). Through this intake of prey body fluids and standing water, δ 18 O enamel data of lions and leopards from eastern Africa are strongly influenced by local meteoric δ 18 O water , similar to what has been documented for herbivores (Kohn, 1996;Hopley et al, 2022). Gorongosa carnivores have, on average, ca.…”

Section: Carnivore δ 18 O Enamelmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Few studies have investigated the δ 13 C (or δ 18 O) ecology of carnivores in Africa (Codron et al, 2007(Codron et al, , 2016(Codron et al, , 2018Voigt et al, 2018;Hopley et al, 2022), which makes interpretation of the GNP dataset challenging. The GNP carnivores have δ 13 C enamel values which fall between those of herbivores and omnivores, indicating that grazers, browsers, mixed-feeders, and/or omnivores were all potentially consumed (Figure 3B).…”

Section: Carnivore δ 13 C Enamelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the δ 13 C enamel vs. δ 18 O enamel biplot, most of the dietary information is derived from carbon. The small trophic enrichment of 1% sometimes observed in δ 13 C of tissues (DeNiro and Epstein, 1981;Schoeniger and DeNiro, 1984;Bocherens and Drucker, 2003;O'Connell et al, 2012) is obscured by differences in δ 13 C between consumed C 3 and C 4 plants (or prey that consumed those plants; Cerling and Harris, 1999;Hopley et al, 2022), while δ 18 O enamel cannot serve as a trophic proxy (but can reveal information about drinking behavior and source waters instead). This shows that there is a minimal ecologically expected organization of isotopic niches without the information gained from δ 15 N enamel data.…”

Section: Carnivore δ 18 O Enamelmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen stable isotopes in modern tooth enamel: A case study from Gorongosa National Park, central Mozambique

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The analyses of the stable isotope ratios of carbon (δ13C), nitrogen (δ15N), and oxygen (δ18O) in animal tissues are powerful tools for reconstructing the feeding behavior of individual animals and characterizing trophic interactions in food webs. Of these biomaterials, tooth enamel is the hardest, most mineralized vertebrate tissue and therefore least likely to be affected by chemical alteration (i.e., its isotopic composition can be preserved over millions of years), making it an important and widely available archive for biologists and paleontologists. Here, we present the first combined measurements of δ13C, δ15N, and δ18O in enamel from the teeth of modern fauna (herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores) from the well-studied ecosystem of Gorongosa National Park (GNP) in central Mozambique. We use two novel methods to produce high-precision stable isotope enamel data: (i) the “oxidation-denitrification method,” which permits the measurement of mineral-bound organic nitrogen in tooth enamel (δ15Nenamel), which until now, has not been possible due to enamel’s low organic content, and (ii) the “cold trap method,” which greatly reduces the sample size required for traditional measurements of inorganic δ13Cenamel and δ18Oenamel (from ≥0.5 to ≤0.1 mg), permitting analysis of small or valuable teeth and high-resolution serial sampling of enamel. The stable isotope results for GNP fauna reveal important ecological information about the trophic level, dietary niche, and resource consumption. δ15Nenamel values clearly differentiate trophic level (i.e., carnivore δ15Nenamel values are 4.0‰ higher, on average, than herbivores), δ13Cenamel values distinguish C3 and/or C4 biomass consumption, and δ18Oenamel values reflect local meteoric water (δ18Owater) in the park. Analysis of combined carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen stable isotope data permits geochemical separation of grazers, browsers, omnivores, and carnivores according to their isotopic niche, while mixed-feeding herbivores cannot be clearly distinguished from other dietary groups. These results confirm that combined C, N, and O isotope analyses of a single aliquot of tooth enamel can be used to reconstruct diet and trophic niches. Given its resistance to chemical alteration, the analysis of these three isotopes in tooth enamel has a high potential to open new avenues of research in (paleo)ecology and paleontology.

show abstract

Section: Carnivore δ 13 C Enamelsupporting

confidence: 71%