Investigating the Influence of Climate Changes on Rodent Communities at a Regional-Scale (MIS 1-3, Southwestern France)

Type Article
Date 2016-01
Language English
Author(s) Royer Aurelien1, 2, 3, Montuire Sophie4, 7, Legendre SergeORCID2, 3, Discamps EmmanuelORCID1, 5, Jeannet Marcel6, Lecuyer Christophe2, 3, 8
Affiliation(s) 1 : Univ Bordeaux, CNRS, MCC, PACEA,UMR 5199, F-33615 Pessac, France.
2 : Univ Lyon 1, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France.
3 : Ecole Normale Super Lyon, Lab Geol Lyon, CNRS, UMR 5276, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France.
4 : Univ Bourgogne, Biogeosci, CNRS, UMR 6282, 6 Blvd Gabriel, F-21000 Dijon, France.
5 : Univ Bergen, AHKR Inst, Oysteinsgate 1,POB 7805, N-5020 Bergen, Norway.
6 : Aix Marseille Univ, LAMPEA, CNRS, UMR 7269,MMSH, 5 Rue Chateau Horloge,BP 647, F-13094 Aix En Provence 2, France.
7 : Ecole Prat Hautes Etud, Lab EPHE PALEVO, F-21000 Dijon, France.
8 : Inst Univ France, Paris, France.
Source Plos One (1932-6203) (Public Library Science), 2016-01 , Vol. 11 , N. 1 , P. 1-25
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0145600
WOS© Times Cited 42
Abstract

Terrestrial ecosystems have continuously evolved throughout the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene, deeply affected by both progressive environmental and climatic modifications, as well as by abrupt and large climatic changes such as the Heinrich or Dansgaard-Oeschger events. Yet, the impacts of these different events on terrestrial mammalian communities are poorly known, as is the role played by potential refugia on geographical species distributions. This study examines community changes in rodents of southwestern France between 50 and 10 ky BP by integrating 94 dated faunal assemblages coming from 37 archaeological sites. This work reveals that faunal distributions were modified in response to abrupt and brief climatic events, such as Heinrich events, without actually modifying the rodent community on a regional scale. However, the succession of events which operated between the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene gradually led to establishing a new rodent community at the regional scale, with intermediate communities occurring between the Bolling and the Allerod.

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Publisher's official version 25 3 MB Open access
S1_Fig. The line is the regression line obtained using the Reduced Major Axis method, which was also used to calculate the time-intervals reported in S2 Table. 1 68 KB Open access
S2_Fig. Rodent species are the following: the garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus), the fat dormouse (Glis glis), the wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) 1 166 KB Open access
S1_Table. Dates are calibrated at 2σ (95.4%) using OxCal 4.2 and calibration curve IntCal13 [64]. 8 109 KB Open access
S2_Table. Time-intervals defined with their standard errors as well as the number of stratigraphic units that cross over them. 2 37 KB Open access
S3_Table. Number of stratigraphic units in which each species is present for each time-interval. 2 92 KB Open access
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