Paleobiology Commons^™

Exploring The Relationships Between Mammalian Functional Trait Distributions And Regional Biomes, With Application To Miocene Paleoecology, Devra Hock-Reid

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Paleoecology relies on understanding relationships between modern animals and their environment. Animals are adapted to niches in their environments, and those physical adaptations, or functional traits, are utilized as proxies to interpret aspects of paleo-ecosystems. Much is known about individual functional traits in extant mammals and their relationship to the environment. Less is known about how multiple functional traits across a community can be utilized for paleoecological interpretations. I develop models utilizing traits in mammalian communities at the biome level. For Chapter 1, I build a model for North American regional biomes using mammalian trait frequencies. I quantify changes in …

Holocene Rice Rats (Genus Oryzomys) From The Upper Mississippi River Drainage Basin, Hugh H. Genoways

Zea E-Books Collection

The expansion and collapse of the geographic range of the Texas rice rat (Oryzomys texensis) in the upper Mississippi River drainage basin at the end of the Holocene was a unique event in North American mammals. In a period of about 4000 years with a point of origin near the American Bottom in Illinois, these small rodents extended their geographic range in a straight-line distance of over 950 km to the west into Nebraska and the same distance to the east into Pennsylvania. Then in less than 400 years this range expansion collapsed back to a point where …

Holocene Records Of Nebraska Mammals, Hugh H. Genoways

Zea E-Books Collection

A survey of the archeological and paleontological literature allowed a compilation of Holocene records of mammals in Nebraska. This survey identified Holocene records from 338 sites in 62 of the 93 Nebraska counties. These counties were located throughout state, but there was a concentration of sites in southwestern Nebraska where there were 27 fossil sites in Frontier County and 22 in Harlan County. Fossils sites were underrepresented in the Sand Hills region. Records of fossil mammals covered the entire Holocene period from 13,000 years ago until AD 1850. A minimum of 57 species (with eight additional species potentially present) representing …

Reorganization Of Surviving Mammal Communities After The End-Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinction, Anikó B. Tóth, S. Kathleen Lyons, W. Andrew Barr, Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Jessica L. Blois, René Bobe, Matt Davis, Andrew Du, Jussi T. Eronen, J. Tyler Faith, Danielle Fraser, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Gary R. Graves, Advait M. Jukar, Joshua H. Miller, Silvia Pineda-Munoz, Laura C. Soul, Amelia Villaseñor, John Alroy

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Large mammals are at high risk of extinction globally. To understand the consequences of their demise for community assembly, we tracked community structure through the end- Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in North America.We decomposed the effects of biotic and abiotic factors by analyzing co-occurrence within the mutual ranges of species pairs. Although shifting climate drove an increase in niche overlap, co-occurrence decreased, signaling shifts in biotic interactions. Furthermore, the effect of abiotic factors on cooccurrence remained constant over time while the effect of biotic factors decreased. Biotic factors apparently played a key role in continental-scale community assembly before the extinctions. Specifically, …

Index

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

No abstract provided.

The Accelerating Influence Of Humans On Mammalian Macroecological Patterns Over The Late Quaternary, Felisa A. Smith, Rosemary E. Elliott Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, Jonathan L. Payne, Amelia Villaseñor

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The transition of hominins to a largely meat-based diet ~1.8 million years ago led to the exploitation of other mammals for food and resources. As hominins, particularly archaic and modern humans, became increasingly abundant and dispersed across the globe, a temporally and spatially transgressive extinction of large-bodied mammals followed; the degree of selectivity was unprecedented in the Cenozoic fossil record. Today, most remaining large-bodied mammal species are confined to Africa, where they coevolved with hominins. Here, using a comprehensive global dataset of mammal distribution, life history and ecology, we examine the consequences of “body size downgrading” of mammals over the …

Body Size Downgrading Of Mammals Over The Late Quaternary, Felisa A. Smith, Rosemary E. Elliott Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, Jonathan L. Payne

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Since the late Pleistocene, large-bodied mammals have been extirpated from much of Earth. Although all habitable continents once harbored giant mammals, the few remaining species are largely confined to Africa. This decline is coincident with the global expansion of hominins over the late Quaternary. Here, we quantify mammalian extinction selectivity, continental body size distributions, and taxonomic diversity over five time periods spanning the past 125,000 years and stretching approximately 200 years into the future. We demonstrate that size-selective extinction was already under way in the oldest interval and occurred on all continents, within all trophic modes, and across all time …

Constraining Neogene Temperature And Precipitation Histories In The Central Great Plains Using The Fossil Record Of Alligator, Evan Whiting

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Most amphibians and reptiles (excluding birds) are poikilothermic; their internal body temperature varies with that of their external environment. This makes them useful as climate proxies, especially when linked to geographic distributions of ambient climate. I evaluate the utility of the extant crocodylian genus Alligator as a paleoclimate proxy for the Central Great Plains (CGP) using species distribution modeling. Alligator is a readily identifiable taxon with a good CGP fossil record during the Neogene (~23–2.6 Ma). Alligator first appeared in the CGP in the late Eocene (~37 Ma), was absent during most of the Oligocene, reappeared in the early Miocene …

Ecology And Morphology Of The Late Miocene Musk Deer, Longirostromeryx Wellsi (Artiodactyla: Moschidae: Blastomerycinae), Katheryn Y. C. Chen

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Longirostromeryx wellsi, one of the latest surviving members of the extinct clade Blastomerycinae (Artiodactyla: Moschidae), possesses highly derived craniodental morphology that deviates from typical musk deer form. Previous work suggests that the unique anatomy of L. wellsi represents adaptations for occupying open savannas. To test this hypothesis I conduct principal components analysis on five postcranial bones of L. wellsi, comparing them to that of several extant ruminant artiodactyls, which are divided among seven habitat categories. These elements are also compared with the postcrania of other blastomerycines. These analyses indicate that L. wellsi anatomy is most similar to that of other …

The Evolution Of Respiratory O2/No Reductases: An Out-Of-The-Phylogenetic-Box Perspective, Anne-Lise Ducluzeau, Barbara Schoepp-Cothenet, Robert Van Lis, Frauke Baymann, Michael J. Russell, Wilfgang Nitschke

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Complex life on our planet crucially depends on strong redox disequilibria afforded by the almost ubiquitous presence of highly oxidizing molecular oxygen. However, the history of O₂-levels in the atmosphere is complex and prior to the Great Oxidation Event some 2.3 billion years ago, the amount of O₂ in the biosphere is considered to have been extremely low as compared with present-day values. Therefore the evolutionary histories of life and of O₂-levels are likely intricately intertwined. The obvious biological proxy for inferring the impact of changing O₂-levels on life is the evolutionary history …

Patterns Of Maximum Body Size Evolution In Cenozoic Land Mammals: Eco-Evolutionary Processes And Abiotic Forcing, Juha J. Saarinen, Alison G. Boyer, James H. Brown, Daniel P. Costa, S.K. Morgan Ernest, Alistair R. Evans, Mikael Fortelius, John L. Gittleman, Marcus J. Hamilton, Larisa E, Harding, Kari Lintulaakso, S. Kathleen Lyons, Jordan G. Okie, Richard M. Sibly, Patrick R. Stephens, Jessica Theodor, Mark D. Uhen, Felisa A. Smith

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

There is accumulating evidence that macroevolutionary patterns of mammal evolution during the Cenozoic follow similar trajectories on different continents. This would suggest that such patterns are strongly determined by global abiotic factors, such as climate, or by basic eco-evolutionary processes such as filling of niches by specialization. The similarity of pattern would be expected to extend to the history of individual clades. Here, we investigate the temporal distribution of maximum size observed within individual orders globally and on separate continents. While the maximum size of individual orders of large land mammals show differences and comprise several families, the times at …

Tapeworms Of Elasmobranchs (Part Iii) A Monograph On The Phyllobothriidae (Platyhelminthes, Cestoda), Timothy R. Ruhnke

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

This monograph aims to provide information on the taxonomic status of all genera associated with the tetraphyllidean family Phyllobothriidae. Full treatments of the three valid species of the type genus, Phyllobothrium, in addition to the 47 valid species of Clistobothrium, Crossobothrium, Marsupiobothrium, Monorygma, Nandocestus, Orectolobicestus, Orygmatobothrium, Paraorygmatobothrium, Ruhnkecestus, and Scyphophyllidium are provided, as is a taxonomic history of the family. Of the valid genera historically associated with the family, only Phyllobothrium is considered to be an unambiguous member of the family. The genera Bibursibothrium, Calyptrobothrium, Cardiobothrium, Clistobothrium, Crossobothrium, Doliobothrium, Flexibothrium, Marsupiobothrium, Monorygma, Nandocestus, Orectolobicestus, Orygmatobothrium, Paraorygmatobothrium, Ruhnkecestus, Scyphophyllidium …

Tetrapod Fauna Of The Lowermost Usili Formation (Songea Group, Ruhuhu Basin) Of Southern Tanzania, With A New Burnetiid Record, Christian A. Sidor, Kenneth D. Angielczyk, D. Marie Weide, Roger M. H. Smith, Sterling J. Nesbitt, Linda A. Tsuji

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Vertebrate fossils from the Ruhuhu Basin of southern Tanzania have been known for over 75 years, but the details of their stratigraphic distribution remain imperfectly understood. Recent fieldwork in the Upper Permian Usili Formation (Songea Group) has led to the discovery of a tetrapod assemblage in a conglomeratic unit at its base. The fossils are concentrated in matrix-supported intraformational clay pebble conglomerates interpreted as mass flow deposits in wide, shallow channels in the distal reaches of an alluvial fan. Included in this new collection are fossils representing the first record of a burnetiid therapsid from Tanzania. The anatomy of the …

Tapeworms Of Elasmobranchs (Part Ii) A Monograph On The Diphyllidea (Platyhelminthes, Cestoda), Gaines Albert Tyler Ii

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

The main objective of this monograph was a synthesis of the available knowledge on the diversity, systematics, host associations, and biogeography of the Diphyllidea. A thorough review of the literature resulted in the transfer of Diagonobothrium into Diphyllidea as a genus inquirendum. The genus Yogeshwaria was also transferred to Diphyllidea as a synonym of Echinobothrium. Its only species, E. nagabhushani n. comb., is considered to be a species inquirenda. New collections resulted in the description of a new species of Echinobothrium. Type and/or voucher specimens for 32 of 36 valid diphyllidean species (including the new species) …

Tapeworms Of Elasmobranchs (Part I) A Monograph On The Lecanicephalidea (Platyhelminthes, Cestoda), Kirsten Jensen

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

This represents the first monographic and phylogenetic treatment of the order Lecanicephalidea. The main objective was to treat the Lecanicephalidea at the generic level, while providing information on morphology, taxonomic history, phylogenetic relationships, geographic distribution, and host associations of the group. Following an introduction to the morphology of the Lecanicephalidea, the phylogenetic placement of the group is addressed. This is followed by a review of the taxonomic history of the group and relationships within, including summaries of 29 previously used classification schemes. Despite the generic focus of this study, the taxonomic status of 137 previously recognized lecanicephalidean species was evaluated, …

Mammals Of Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico, Kenneth N. Geluso, Keith Geluso

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

Carlsbad Cavern was established as a national park on 14 May 1930, after being designated as a national monument for nearly seven years. The park is located in southeastern New Mexico, and today it encompasses 189.3 km² (73.1 mi²). Eighty-eight percent of the park lies in the rugged Guadalupe Mountains, while 12% is located on relatively flat land along the base of the mountains. The park contains a variety of habitats ranging from desert scrub at the lowest elevations to coniferous woodlands on the highest summits. Five months after Carlsbad Cavern was declared a national monument, Vernon …

Body Mass Of Late Quaternary Mammals (Data Set), Felisa A. Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, S.K. Morgan Ernest, Kate E. Jones, Kansas State University, Tamar Dayan, Pablo A. Marquet, James H. Brown, John P. Haskell

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this data set was to compile body mass information for all mammals on Earth so that we could investigate the patterns of body mass seen across geographic and taxonomic space and evolutionary time. We were interested in the heritability of body size across taxonomic groups (How conserved is body mass within a genus, family, and order?), in the overall pattern of body mass across continents (Do the moments and other descriptive statistics remain the same across geographic space?), and over evolutionary time (How quickly did body mass patterns iterate on the patterns seen today? Were the Pleistocene …

Amphicyonidae, Robert Hunt

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

The Amphicyonidae occur in North America from late Eocene (~40 Ma) to early late Miocene (~9 Ma), a span of 31 million years. In the North American land mammal biochronology, this diverse family extends from the Duchesnean to the end of the Clarendonian and is especially well represented in the Miocene (~5-24 Ma). In the Old World, amphicyonids survive no longer than in North America: The last European records are Vallesian (Dinotheriensande, Mainz Basin, Germany, Kuss, 1965, Tobien, 1980; Vallés-Penédes Basin, Spain, Crusafont-Pairó and Kurten, 1976), and the last representative may occur at about 9 Ma at Kohfidisch, Austria (latest …

A Revision Of The North American Papillose Allocreadiidae (Digenea) With Independent Cladistic Analyses Of Larval And Adult Forms, Janine N. Caira

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

Adult specimens of all 19 North American species of papillose allocreadiids were examined. A description and figure is given for the adult of each species; details of the cirrus sacs are presented for most spesies for the first time. Descriptions were emended where necessary and judgments were made on synonymies. Scanning electron micrographs of the oral sucker of 10 species are presented as is a new key to the 19 species. A cladistic analysis was performed on the group based on adult characters. The analysis indicated that the group is monophyletic on the basis of the ventral papillae associated with …

A Monograph Of The Genus Polyphylla Harris In America North Of Mexico (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae), Ronald M. Young

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

The North American species of the genus Polyphylla Harris, 1841, are defined and revised for the first time since Fall (1928). All name bearing types were examined except those of P. oklahomensis Hatch and P. subvittata LeConte (synonyms of P. hammondl), which are lost. A lectotype is designated for P. gracilis Horn, and neotypes for P. decemlineata (Say), P. occidentalis (L.), and P. variolosa (Hentz). New synonyms of P. decemlineata are P. comstockiana von Bloeker, P. matrona Casey, and P. potsiana Casey. New synonyms of P. crinita LeConte are P. pacifica Casey and P. ruficollis perversa Casey. P. alleni …

Classification, Paleoecology, And Biostratigraphy Of Crinoids From The Stull Shale (Late Pennsylvanian) Of Nebraska, Kansas, And Iowa, Roger K. Pabian, Harrell L. Strimple

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

Thirteen species of crinoids representing the families Diphuicrinidae, catacrinidae, Pirasocrinidae, Erisocrinidae, Cromyocrinidae, Cymbiocrinidae, Scytalocrinidae, and Ampelocrinidae have been collected from the Stull Shale Member of the Kanwaka Formation in the Shawnee Group of the Virgil Series (Upper Pennsylvanian) from near Weeping Water and Plattsmouth, Nebraska, and near Pacific Junction, Iowa. Exposures of the Stull Shale near Melvern, Kansas, have yielded 14 species of crinoids representing the families Diphuicrinidae, Catacrinidae, Pirasocrinidae, Lophocrinidae Allagecrinidae, Cymbiocrinidae, Erisocrinidae, Apographiocrinidae, and Stellarocrinidae. All but two of the species present in the Stull Shale have been previously reported from other stratigraphic horizons, including the Vinland Shale …

A Revision Of The Genus Strategus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), Brett C. Ratcliffe

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

The New World genus Strategus Kirby is here defined and revised for the first time. Eight species are described as new: S. atlanticus, S. caymani, S. craigi, S. hipposiderus, S. howdeni, S. longichomperus, S. symphenax, and S. tarquinius; 12 new junior synonyms are established (including the rejection of six previously valid species)'; one species is raised from synonymy; and two new replacement names are proposed. Strategus now contains one fossil species and 31 valid extant species. A key to the males and females of all the species is provided for the first …

Cenozoic Mammals From The Central Great Plains, C. Bertrand Schultz, Larry D. Martin, R. George Corner, Lloyd G. Tanner

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

Includes:

Part 1. Middle and Late Cenozoic Tapirs from Nebraska. By C. Bertrand Schultz, Larry D. Martin, and R. George Corner.

Part 2. Stratigraphic Occurrences of Teleoceras, with a New Kimballian Species from Nebraska. By Lloyd G. Tanner.

Part 3. A New Kimballian Peccary from Nebraska. By C. Bertrand Schultz and Larry D. Martin.

Part 4. Bears (Ursidae) from the Late Cenozoic of Nebraska. By C. Bertrand Schultz and Larry D. Martin.

Part 5. Scimitar-toothed Cats, Machairodus and Nimravides, from the Pliocene of Kansas and Nebraska. By Larry D. Martin and C. Bertrand Schultz.

84 pp

A New Kimballian Peccary From Nebraska, C. Bertrand Schultz, Larry D. Martin

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

A new species of Pliocene peccary, Prosthennops (Macrogens) graffhami; is described from the Kimball Formation, Ogallala Group, Frontier County, Nebraska. This new species is the latest in geologic age and most advanced in the genus.

The remains of fossil vertebrates are generally rare in the upper part of the Ogallala group, and some have maintained that Hemphillian faunas such as Coffee Ranch and Smith County, Kansas, represent the latest Ogallala faunas. Later faunas than are typically considered as Hemphillian, containing more advanced forms, occur in the Kimball Formation and deposits of equivalent age. Known faunas which may …

Bears (Ursidae) From The Late Cenozoic Of Nebraska, C. Bertrand Schultz, Larry D. Martin

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

A ramus and partial premaxilla establish the presence of a new subspecies of Indarctos in the upper Pliocene (Kimball Formation, Ogallala Group) of Frontier County, Nebraska. An extremely large species of Agriotherium is represented by fragmentary remains from the middle Pliocene (middle part of Ash Hollow Formation, Ogallala Group) of Sherman County, Nebraska.

This study is part of a series of papers dealing primarily with the fauna of the Kimball formation in Nebraska (Barbour 1927, 1929; Barbour and Schultz, 1941; Schultz and Stout, 1948, 1961; Kent 1963, 1967; Tanner, 1967; Short, 1969; Martin and Tate, 1970; Schultz, Schultz, and Martin, …

Scimitar-Toothed Cats, Machairodus And Nimravides, From The Pliocene Of Kansas And Nebraska, Larry D. Martin, C. Bertrand Schultz

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

"Machairodus catocopis Cope" is shown to be a pseudaelurin cat belonging to the genus Nimravides Kitts. Nimravides thinobates (Macdonald) is a possible synonym of N. catocopis (Cope). Nimravides is compared with the Eurasian Machairodus-like cat, Dinofelis. Machairodus (Heterofelis) coloradensis is reported from the Kimball Formation, upper Pliocene (Kimballian) of Cheyenne County, Nebraska, and from the upper part of the Ash Hollow Formation, Pliocene (Hemphillian) of Sherman County, Nebraska. The Kimballian form is described as a new subspecies, Machairodus coloradensis tanneri.

The genus Machairodus has long been associated with the Hemphillian of North America and the …

Middle And Late Cenozoic Tapirs From Nebraska, C. Bertrand Schultz, Larry D. Martin, R. George Corner

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

The distribution and evolution of Late Cenozoic tapirs are discussed and the forms present in Nebraska are reported. Two new species are described from the Ogallala Pliocene of Nebraska, ?Tapirus johnsoni and ?T. simpsoni. Tapirs are known in Nebraska from the Early Oligocene through the Middle Pleistocene. The northern limit of the distribution of the tapirs contracts gradually southward in North America throughout the Tertiary, and even during the Pleistocene interglacials Nebraska must have been near the northern limit of their range.

Stratigraphic Occurrences Of Teleoceras With A New Kimballianspecies From Nebraska, Lloyd G. Tanner

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

Study of Teleoceras remains in the University of Nebraska State Museum indicates that this specialized, short-limbed rhinoceros inhabited the Central Great Plains from Early through Late Pliocene. Previously thought to have become extinct at the end of the middle Pliocene, this genus is now known from the very latest Pliocene. A new species, Teleoceras schultzi, is described from the Kimball Formation, Ogallala Group, Frontier County, Nebraska.

A New Species Of Menoceras From The Marsland Formation Of Nebraska, Lloyd G. Tanner

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

Further study indicates that the Menoceras remains collected from the "Bridgeport Quarries" (lower port:on or the Marsland Formation, Middle Miocene, of the Hemingford Group) are of a new species.

In 1962, these dicerathere remains were considered to be a geologic variety of Diceratherium niobrarensis (Stecher, Schultz, and Tanner). However, later (Tanner, 1969) a generic distinction was revived, separating the Menoceras Troxell from Diceratherium Marsh. Diceretherium niobrarensis was then placed in synonymy with Menoceras arikarense (Barbour).

The new species is an intermediate between Menoceras arikarense (Barbour) from the Harrison Formation and Menoceras marslandensis Tanner, from the upper portion of the Marsland …

Two Lynx-Like Cats From The Pliocene And Pleistocene, C. Bertrand Schultz, Larry D. Martin

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum

A new species (Lynx stouti) of small felid is described from the lower Pliocene of Colorado. This form has several characters in common with the modern Lynx and may be ancestral to that genus. A new subspecies of Lynx issiodorensis Croizet and Jobert is described as L. i. kurteni from the Mullen Assemblage, Cherry County, Nebraska. The relationships of this form to other lynxes are discussed along with the paleo-distribution of the genus.

The classification of the felinae has always been somewhat controversial, especially at the generic level. One fairly homogenous group of cats which has been separated …