Author Archives: Mikko K Haaramo

Highlatitude camel and the evolution of Plestocene cold adapted fauna

Another element of Pleistocene faunal community ancestors has been found.
Reported in the Nature Communications.

Rybczynski, N., Gosse, J. C., Richard Harington, C., Wogelius, R. A., Hidy, A. J. & Buckley, M., 2013: Mid-Pliocene warm-period deposits in the High Arctic yield insight into camel evolution.
–Nature Communications: Vol. 4, pp. 1550 [doi: 10.1038/ncomms2516]

Abstract:
“The mid-Pliocene was a global warm period, preceding the onset of Quaternary glaciations. Here we use cosmogenic nuclide dating to show that a fossiliferous terrestrial deposit that includes subfossil trees and the northern-most evidence of Pliocene ice wedge casts in Canada’s High Arctic (Ellesmere Island, Nunavut) was deposited during the mid-Pliocene warm period. The age estimates correspond to a general maximum in high latitude mean winter season insolation, consistent with the presence of a rich, boreal-type forest. Moreover, we report that these deposits have yielded the first evidence of a High Arctic camel, identified using collagen fingerprinting of a fragmentary fossil limb bone. Camels originated in North America and dispersed to Eurasia via the Bering Isthmus, an ephemeral land bridge linking Alaska and Russia. The results suggest that the evolutionary history of modern camels can be traced back to a lineage of giant camels that was well established in a forested Arctic.”

–Mikko

Stop the Press!! – Extinction Galore!

Latest Science contains an interesting K/Pg (K/T)-extinction related article.

Renne, P. R., Deino, A. L., Hilgen, F. J., Kuiper, K. F., Mark, D. F., Mitchell, W. S., Morgan, L. E., Mundil, R. & Smit, J., 2013: Time Scales of Critical Events Around the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary.
–Science: Vol. 339, #6120, pp. 684-687 [doi: 10.1126/science.1230492]

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/684.full

Abstract:

“Mass extinctions manifest in Earth’s geologic record were turning points in biotic evolution. We present 40Ar/39Ar data that establish synchrony between the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary and associated mass extinctions with the Chicxulub bolide impact to within 32,000 years. Perturbation of the atmospheric carbon cycle at the boundary likely lasted less than 5000 years, exhibiting a recovery time scale two to three orders of magnitude shorter than that of the major ocean basins. Low-diversity mammalian fauna in the western Williston Basin persisted for as little as 20,000 years after the impact. The Chicxulub impact likely triggered a state shift of ecosystems already under near-critical stress.”

And what happened after:

O’Leary, M. A., Bloch, J. I., Flynn, J. J., Gaudin, T. J., Giallombardo, A., Giannini, N. P., Goldberg, S. L., Kraatz, B. P., Luo, Z.-X., Meng, J., Ni, X., Novacek, M. J., Perini, F. A., Randall, Z. S., Rougier, G. W., Sargis, E. J., Silcox, M. T., Simmons, N. B., Spaulding, M., Velazco, P. M., Weksler, M., Wible, J. R. & Cirranello, A. L., 2013: The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals.
–Science: Vol. 339, #6120, pp. 662-667 [doi: 10.1126/science.1229237]

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662.full

Abstract:

“To discover interordinal relationships of living and fossil placental mammals and the time of origin of placentals relative to the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, we scored 4541 phenomic characters de novo for 86 fossil and living species. Combining these data with molecular sequences, we obtained a phylogenetic tree that, when calibrated with fossils, shows that crown clade Placentalia and placental orders originated after the K-Pg boundary. Many nodes discovered using molecular data are upheld, but phenomic signals overturn molecular signals to show Sundatheria (Dermoptera + Scandentia) as the sister taxon of Primates, a close link between Proboscidea (elephants) and Sirenia (sea cows), and the monophyly of echolocating Chiroptera (bats). Our tree suggests that Placentalia first split into Xenarthra and Epitheria; extinct New World species are the oldest members of Afrotheria.!