Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T03:42:25.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Moisture History and Small Mammal Community Richness during the Latest Pleistocene and Holocene, Northern Bonneville Basin, Utah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Donald K. Grayson
Donald K. Grayson*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and The Burke Museum, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98195
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Precipitation and net primary productivity are positively correlated in arid environments. Both variables are, in turn, correlated with mammal species richness, but this relationship is not necessarily positive. With increasing precipitation in arid areas of low to moderate productivity, mammal richness increases linearly; as rainfall and productivity increase beyond this point, mammal richness is known to decline in some areas, producing a relationship that has been termed “unimodal” or “humped.” In the Great Basin of the arid western United States, studies of the relationship between rodent species richness and precipitation have revealed only a positive relationship between these two variables. It has, however, been argued that if areas of higher precipitation were to be sampled within this region, the decline phase would become evident. When latest Pleistocene and Holocene small mammal assemblages from the northern Bonneville Basin (central Utah) are examined across a temporal moisture gradient, species richness declines as moisture declines. Since the Great Basin was significantly moister during the latest Pleistocene and Early Holocene than it has been since that time, the unimodal response model does not appear to apply to this region.

Keywords

biogeographymammal historyGreat Basinarid environmentsclimate change
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , May 1998 , pp. 330 - 334
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramsky, Z., Rosenzweig, M.L., 1984. Tilman's predicted productivity–diversity relationship shown by desert rodents. Nature. 309 150–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Abramsky, Z., Brand, S., Rosenzweig, M.L., 1985. Geographical ecology of gerbilline rodents in sand dune habitats of Israel. Journal of Biogeography. 12 363–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, R.H., 1975. The origin of the psychrosphere as recorded in changes of deep-sea ostracode assemblages. Lethaia. 8 69–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J.H., 1973. Species diversity of seed-eating desert rodents in sand dune habitats. Ecology. 54 775–787.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. H, 1975, Geographical ecology of desert rodents, In, Ecology and Evolution of Communities. 315, 341, Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA. Google Scholar
Brown, J.H., Gibson, A.C., 1983. Biogeography. Google Scholar
Grayson, D.K., 1984. Quantitative Zooarchaeology. Academic Press, New York. Google Scholar
Grayson, D.K., 1991. Alpine faunas from the White Mountains, California: Adaptive change in the prehistoric Great Basin. Journal of Archaeological Science. 18 483–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grayson, D.K., 1993. The Desert's Past: A Natural Prehistory of the Great Basin. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington. Google Scholar
Madsen, D.B., Currey, D.R., 1979. Late Quaternary glacial and vegetation changes, Little Cottonwood Canyon area, Wasatch Mountains, Utah. Quaternary Research. 12 254–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meserve, P.L., Glanz, W.E., 1978. Geographical ecology of small mammals in the northern Chilean arid zone. Journal of Biogeography. 5 135–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nowak, C.L., Nowak, R.S., Tausch, R.J., Wigand, P.E., 1994. A 30,000 year record of vegetation dynamics at a semi-arid locale in the Great Basin. Journal of Vegetation Science. 5 579–590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oviatt, C.G., 1997. Lake Bonneville fluctuations and global climate change. Geology. 25 128–155.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owen, J.G., 1988. On productivity as a predictor of rodent and carnivore diversity. Ecology. 69 1161–1165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owen, J.G., 1990. Patterns of mammalian species richness in relation to temperature, productivity, and variance in elevation. Journal of Mammalogy. 71 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhode, D., Madsen, D.B., 1995. Late Wisconsin/Early Holocene vegetation in the Bonneville Basin. Quaternary Research. 44 246–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenzweig, M.L., 1992. Species diversity gradients: We know more and less than we thought. Journal of Mammalogy. 73 715–730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenzweig, M.L., 1995. Species Diversity in Time and Space. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenzweig, M.L., Abramsky, Z., 1993. How are diversity and productivity related. Ricklefs, R.E., Schluter, D., Species Diversity in Ecological Communities. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 52–65.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Reimer, P.J., 1993. Extended14 . Radiocarbon. 35 215–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, R.S., 1990. Late Quaternary vegetation and climate in the Great Basin. Betancourt, J.L., Van Devender, T.R., Martin, P.S., Packrat Middens: The Last 40,000 Years of Biotic Change. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, 200–239.Google Scholar
Thompson, R.S., 1992. Late Quaternary environments in Ruby Valley, Nevada. Quaternary Research. 37 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, R. S., Whitlock, C., Bartlein, P. J., Harrison, S. P., Spaulding, W. G, 1993, Climatic changes in the western United States since 18,000 yr B.P, In, Global Climate since the Last Glacial Maximum. Wright, H. E., Kutzbach, J. E., Webb, III, T., Ruddiman, W. F., Street-Perrott, F. A., Bartlein, P. J., 468, 513, Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Google Scholar
Tilman, D., 1982. Resource Competition and Community Structure. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Google ScholarPubMed
Tilman, D., Pacala, S., 1993. The maintainance of species richness in plant communities. Ricklefs, R.E., Schluter, D., Species Diversity in Ecological Communities. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 13–25.Google Scholar
1983. Climatic Atlas of the United States. U.S. Department of CommerceEnvironmental Data Service, Washington. Google Scholar
Wigand, P.E., Mehringer, P.J. Jr., 1985. Pollen and seed analyses. Thomas, D.H., The Archaeology of Hidden Cave, Nevada. 108–124.Google Scholar
Wright, D.H., Currie, D.J., Maurer, B.A., 1993. Energy supply and patterns of species richness on local and regional scales. Ricklefs, R.E., Schluter, D., Species Diversity in Ecological Communities. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 66–74.Google Scholar