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Using Stable Isotopes To Understand Survival Versus Extinction Of Late Pleistocene Muskoxen, Stephanie Mabee

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis uses stable isotopes to investigate the adaptive advantages of Ovibos moschatus, a muskox, relative to now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna in eastern Beringia (Yukon Territory and Alaska), including another muskox Bootherium bombifrons. Ecological niches were defined for Ovibos and Bootherium using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions of bone collagen. Plant remains trapped in modern Ovibos molars were used to determine the carbon and nitrogen isotope collagen-diet discrimination factors, which were then applied to ancient specimens. Ovibos possessed larger isotopic – and hence ecological – niches than Bootherium across eastern Beringian sites. The larger niche suggests that Ovibos …