RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Mean body size estimation in large mammals and the computation of biomass in past ecosystems: An application to the Pleistocene sites of Orce and Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain)
A1 Rodríguez Gómez, Guillermo
A1 Palmqvist, Paul
A1 Martínez Navarro, Bienvenido
A1 Martín González, Jesús Ángel
A1 Bermúdez de Castro, José María
K1 Body mass
K1 Weibull model
K1 Macromammals
K1 Paleoeccosystems
K1 Carrying capacity
K1 On-crop biomass
K1 Masse corporelle
K1 Modèle de Weibull
K1 Macromammifères
K1 Paléoécosystèmes
K1 Capacité de charge
K1 Biomasse “on-crop”
K1 Paleontología
K1 Paleontology
K1 Arqueología-Burgos
K1 Archaeology-Burgos
AB Estimates of adult body mass are usually considered as equivalent of mean population body size in most studies of ancient mammals. However, given that any population is composed in part of subadult individuals, this approach overestimates the mean population body mass and biomass. For this reason, more realistic estimates of mean population body mass should be used. In this paper, we: 1) test five different proxies of population mean mass; and 2) estimate the total prey biomass in the paleoecosystems from the Orce and Atapuerca sites as an approach for estimating their carrying capacity. Our results for past ecosystems support the use of survival profiles derived from the Weibull model (SPW), as they show values in better agreement with those of extant populations. They also estimate higher carrying capacities for the faunal assemblages of Orce than for those of Atapuerca. We suggest that the environmental conditions of Orce could have played an important role in the first peopling of Europe.
PB Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
YR 2022
FD 2022-03
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10259/10451
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10259/10451
LA eng
NO This research was financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) of the Spanish Government (grants CGL2016-78577-P, CGL2016-80975-P, and PGC2018-093925-B-C31), the Generalitat de Catalunya (grant GENCAT 2017SGR 859), and by the program IdEx Bordeaux “Investments for the future”, financed by Agence nationale de la Recherche of France (ref. ANR No.-10- IDEX-03-02). G. Rodríguez-Gómez is supported by a “Juan de la Cierva-formación” postdoctoral contract (FJCI-2016- 28652) from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) of the Spanish Government and by an ‘‘Atracción de Talento’’ postdoctoral contract (2019-T2/HUM-13370) from “Comunidad de Madrid/Universidad Complutense” for developing the project ‘‘Estudios paleoecológicos en los yacimientos de Orce y de la sierra de Atapuerca’’.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Burgos
RD 10-may-2025