title: Herbivore teeth predict climatic limits in Kenyan ecosystems.
abstract: A major focus in evolutionary biology is to understand how the evolution of organisms relates to changes in their physical environment. In the terrestrial realm, the interrelationships among climate, vegetation, and herbivores lie at the heart of this question. Here we introduce and test a scoring scheme for functional traits present on the worn surfaces of large mammalian herbivore teeth to capture their relationship to environmental conditions. We modeled local precipitation, temperature, primary productivity, and vegetation index as functions of dental traits of large mammal species in 13 national parks in Kenya over the past 60 y. We found that these dental traits can accurately estimate local climate and environment, even at small spatial scales within areas of relatively uniform climate (within two ecoregions), and that they predict limiting conditions better than average conditions. These findings demonstrate that the evolution of key functional properties of organisms may be more reflective of demands during recurring adverse episodes than under average conditions or during isolated severe events.
authors: Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland; indre.zliobaite@helsinki.fi.|Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, Aalto University, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland.
authors: Indrė
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2427-5407
authors: I
authors: Žliobaitė
authors: Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland.|Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, S-22362 Lund, Sweden.
authors: Janne
authors: J
authors: Rinne
authors: Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems Program, Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institute, Washington,DC 20013.|Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, 2109 Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors: Anikó B
authors: AB
authors: Tóth
authors: Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland.
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Mechenich
authors: Department of Paleobiology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, SE-11418 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors: Liping
authors: L
authors: Liu
authors: Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems Program, Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institute, Washington,DC 20013.
authors: Anna K
authors: AK
authors: Behrensmeyer
authors: Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland.|Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway.|Museum of Natural History, 10115 Berlin, Germany.
authors: Mikael
authors: M
authors: Fortelius
keywords: Kenya; dental traits; ecometrics; herbivorous mammals; paleoecology