Abstract
Deep-time perspectives in macroecology are essential with regard to understanding the impact of climate forcing on faunal communities. Using late Miocene rodent faunas (12 to 5 Ma) from two different biogeographical provinces from southwestern Europe, we asked whether the waxing and waning of faunas with dissimilar ecological affinities tracked climate in different ways. The latest middle Miocene featured a fauna dominated by dormice with forest and mixed-habitat affinities. This group declined towards the Upper Miocene. Rodent taxa with the highest values of richness at the beginning of the Upper Miocene are generalists in the southern province and specialists of forested habitats in the northern province. Finally, we identified a third, increasingly significant group of rodents linked to open landscapes towards the end of the Miocene. These three broad ecological groups showed differential responses to a complex set of interconnected circumstances, including the biogeographic structure of the study area and climatic changes throughout time.
Similar content being viewed by others
Introduction
Changes in environmental conditions strongly affect the development of faunal communities1. Indeed, reciprocal relationships might be operating between organisms and environmental factors2. Such relationships can be identified at local and broad scales and affect the structure and function of ecosystems3,4.
Research on community ecology has traditionally emphasised the identification of recurrent faunal assemblages at different times and in different places5. Based on the idea that faunal communities are non-random sets of species2, these ecological studies have focused on the characterization of past communities6 and the understanding of the patterns of community structure over time.
Furthermore, macroecological studies favour the description of changes in biotic communities related to evolutionary processes or climatic trends through wide spatial7,8 and —when applied to the fossil record— temporal scales9. Thus, deep-time macroecological approaches are critical with regard to investigating the consequences of climatic changes on ancient mammal faunas.
Rodents are a paramount study group within this context because they are ubiquitous, highly diverse and provide detailed palaeoenvironmental information at fine temporal scales10,11,12. Indeed, their rich fossil record has been used to unveil connections between past faunal events and abiotic factors13,14.
Herein we focus on the end of the Miocene (12 to 5 Ma), an interval of crucial climate shifts15,16 and examine the impact of environmental forcing on the community composition of rodent faunas in the well-known fossil record of southwestern Europe. First, based on the concept of ecological guilds2 and using Principal Components Analysis (PCA), we ask whether the late Miocene rodent faunas can be grouped according to similar biodiversity patterns throughout time as a result of similar ecological affinities. Subsequently we statistically assess the responses to Miocene climate shifts, testing the correspondence of their evolutionary trends together with a detailed palaeoclimatic proxy.
Results and Discussion
The PCA produced six significant factors (see the sedimentation graph in the supplementary information Fig. S1) that accounted for more than 60% of the variance. Thus, the late Miocene rodent fossil record can be summarised in six sets of genera with similar patterns of variation within communities, in the present paper called faunal components (FC I to IV, see Table 1 and supplementary information Tables S1 and S2). In order to ease the differentiation between PCA factors and faunal components, the former was numbered with Arabic notation and the latter with Roman numerals.
The temporal series of the six PCA factors and the species diversity of their related faunal components in both the northern and southern provinces are represented in Figures 1 and 2 respectively. Herein we assume that the common pattern of such sets of genera over time results from common ecological affinities and similar responses to ecological shifts. Interestingly, our bootstrapping analysis highlights the fact that the sites-per-basin ratio of the northern basin is suitable for a robust macroecological reconstruction (see supplementary information Fig. S2). Geographic differences between provinces regarding diversity patterns are clearly shown in Figure 3.
The six FCs can be classified into three groups due to similarities in factor scores and richness patterns throughout time.
Latest middle Miocene faunal components. FC V and FC VI comprise genera with their highest preponderance in the latest Middle Miocene (the oldest time lapse considered in this study) (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2). These two faunal components are mainly dominated by glirids. These, however, show different ecological preferences in each component17. Most of the glirids grouped in the faunal component V have classically been considered as forest dwellers due to their brachyodont molars18. This is congruent with the fact that the genera grouped in this component are usually more diverse in the northern province (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3), where these taxa found a distinctive environment, which might have acted as a forest refuge19,20. Glirids included in FC VI (e.g. Armantomys, Microdyromys, among others) have classically been inferred as inhabitants of open environments due to the simple morphology of their upper molars18. FC VI also includes terrestrial squirrels —also considered inhabitants of open landscapes— and cricetids22. In summary, FC V is made up of forest dwellers, whereas FC VI comprises open-environments adapted forms, which dominate in the southern province (Fig. 3).
Interestingly, although both faunal components present their highest values at the beginning of the interval analysed (Fig. 1), it appears that the peak of PCA factor 6 scores slightly preceded the one of PCA factor 5. This discrepancy might be related to the middle Miocene aridity peak on the Iberian Peninsula (around 9,5 Ma), which gradually diminished towards the Vallesian25,27,28. Nevertheless, the decline of Gliridae in terms of diversity, as well as the decrease in its relative abundance in rodent assemblages, becomes apparent during the latest middle Miocene, around 12 Ma29.
PCA factors 5 and 6 were negatively affected by global temperature cooling (negative correlation between PCA factor scores and δ18O values, see table 2). Despite their ecological differences, both faunal groups underwent a progressive demise concomitant with the cooling trend. Associated with this mid-Vallesian faunal change, formerly known as the Vallesian Crisis30,31, FC V and FC VI were succeeded by more open-habitats adapted faunas that characterised the following period.
Earliest late Miocene faunal components. FC II and FC III constitute a second subset that includes genera presenting their highest richness values between approximately 11-7 Ma and decreasing drastically between 7 and 6 Ma (Fig. 2).
FC II includes sciurines —particularly flying squirrels—, dormice, hamsters and beavers, but also eomyids, zapodines, anomalomyids and one gerbil (Table 1). A total of 23 genera makes it the most diverse of all the Faunal Components. Several authors have recognised an ecological preference for forested habitats for most of the taxa in this set21,23,33,34,35,36,37,38. In fact, the genera grouped in this component are much more abundant in the northern province, reaching richness values of over ten species. Their richness was maintained until around 6 Ma (Fig. 2). Our results suggest that the northern province might have maintained the optimal humidity conditions in which the genera of FC II found propitious environments. This pattern is clearly exemplified by the flying squirrels, which were mainly restricted to the northern province and did not enter the southern province until the end of the Miocene40.
FC III included only seven genera, most of them Murine rodents (e.g. Progonomys or Occitanomys). The taxa included in this faunal component are among the most ubiquitous genera included in the present research, existing throughout the whole time lapse considered and recorded in most of the fossil sites of the Late Miocene (Fig. 3). This ubiquity likely stems from the fact that most of them have been described as inhabitants of open woodland areas12,41,42, an environment widely extended across a large portion of the Iberian Peninsula during the late Miocene26.
PCA factor 2 in the northern province was favoured by the global cooling trend (positive correlation between PCA factor scores and δ18O values, see table 2), suggesting that the global decrease in temperatures following the Middle Miocene favoured a group of forest-adapted northern faunas (Fig. 3). Nevertheless, a cooling trend, linked to an increase in aridity, occurred at the end of Miocene. As a result, the Northern Hemisphere underwent a climate deterioration associated with the expansion of open environments and thus the diversity of forest-adapted forms declined, a fact that dramatically affected the flying squirrels of the studied area43.
Latest late Miocene faunal components. The end of the Miocene is characterised by the predominance of two different sets of muroids —mainly hamsters and mice—, included in FC I and FC IV (Fig. 2)21,32. FC I principally comprises genera of the subfamily Murinae, an important group in the Upper Miocene rodent faunas from Europe. Nonetheless, FC I is much more significant in the southern province than in the northern one (Fig. 3). Furthermore, this latest Miocene genera set included various rodent species with African and Asian affinities44,45,46,47, as well as a terrestrial squirrel, all of them associated with the development of arid environments48,49.
FC IV also grouped a set of forms classically associated with arid environments, including murines, microtoid cricetids, as well as porcupines and beavers with a preference for relatively dry habitats (Table 1)21,50,51,52. As previously seen for FC I, FC IV shows the expected geographic pattern for faunas with preferences for arid environments, with taxa limited to only a few fossil sites of the northern province (Fig. 3), whereas these taxa show higher species richness in the southern province through the late Miocene (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3).
We suggest that the prevalence of this arid-adapted forms (both FC I and FC IV) is related to the Messinian event19. The extent and impact of the Messinian Salinity event remain a matter of debate53,54,55. Nevertheless, our results suggest, however, a substitution of forest-adapted faunas by open-habitat related forms took place concomitant with the Messinian event. Our climatic analysis confirms this idea. PCA factors 1 and 4 in the southern province were favoured by the global cooling (positive correlation between PCA factor scores and δ18O values, see table 2) that gave rise to aridification of the ecosystems in central and southern Iberia26. In this case the groups favoured by the cooling trend in the south were associated with open environments, with opposite ecological preferences to the ones favoured by global cooling during the earliest late Miocene in the northern province (Fig. 3).
The combination of ecological and climatic analyses presented herein shed light on the ecological succession of rodent faunas that took place from the latest middle Miocene to the Miocene-Pliocene boundary. During this entire time interval, an almost continuous global cooling trend occurred24 which was strongly associated with the ecological and evolutionary succession described. The first climate-driven event involved depletion of the faunal components V and VI associated with the end of the middle Miocene12. During the earliest late Miocene this cooling trend favoured the development of cool-adapted faunas (FC II) in the forested environments of the northern biogeographical province. Finally, during the latest Miocene, the global cooling rendered the inception of semiarid environments in the southern province, which harboured an increasing assemblage of aridity-adapted genera (FC I and FC IV)19,39,48.
Conclusions
The temporal variation of genera preponderance within Miocene rodent communities can be used to identify ecologically affine groups —faunal components—. Our macroecological fossil-based approach enables us to identify similarities in the temporal and spatial variations of these faunal components that link them to variations in global and regional climate. Identification of such patterns revealed the existence of differential responses within rodent faunas to a complex set of changing and interconnected circumstances, including variations in biogeography and environments over time.
Methods
Database
The geographical range of the present research spans the Iberoccitanian region (Iberian Peninsula and central–South eastern France; Fig. S4), comprising fossil localities from the latest Middle Miocene to the Miocene-Pliocene boundary (12.6 to 5.0 Ma; Supplementary information Fig. S4 and Table S3). This region is a remarkable area for the development of macroecological studies from a deep-time perspective due to the quantitative and qualitative importance of its fossil record40. Interestingly, in relation to the rest of Europe, the study area exhibits environmental differences which persist in time due to its isolated position in the westernmost part of Europe51,56,57, which characterised this region as an ecological refuge during particular time lapses19,20,58.
Additionally, in this region two environmentally distinctive mammalian bioprovinces arise20,59, recognizable since the Eocene60,61. The northern province includes fossil sites from the Rhône, Provence, Cucuron-Basse Durance and Languedoc-Rousillon basins from South-Eastern France and the Vallès-Penedès basin from Catalonia (North eastern Spain). All the other fossil sites from the Iberian Peninsula are included in the southern province and are located at Alfambra-Teruel, Alicante, Baixo Tejo, Castellón, Calatayud-Daroca, Duero, Fortuna, Granada, Guadix-Baza, Hijar, Murcia, Tajo and Valencia basins (See supplementary information Table S3).
We compiled a database of rodent species recorded at each fossil site included in this study. The species list per fossil site was based upon a reviewed compilation from the literature and updated to the latest taxonomy20. Additionally, the minimum sample required to include a fossil site in the present study was 100 molars (including first and second upper and lower molars). This number is considered to be the minimum necessary to render a representative sample of the original assemblage62. This restriction was overlooked in the case of poor localities characterised by their interesting geographic location or stratigraphical importance.
We employed this dataset of rodent species to compile a matrix with information on the percentage of species of each genus in each fossil site. Finally, our database considers 973 records of 67 rodent genera in 117 Iberoccitanian fossil sites (See supplementary information Table S1). We used species percentages (relative richness) rather than number of species to avoid the potential influence of species richness on the results63, which can be affected by sampling biases64.
Identification of faunal components
By applying Principal Component Analyses (PCA) to a sites/genera percentage matrix, we classified rodent genera into groups with comparable patterns in the variation of species richness in time and space, which we call faunal components. The PCA enabled us to portray the changes in the taxonomic structure of these Iberoccitanian rodent faunas12,63,65 by reducing the number of original variables (67 genera) to a series of linear combinations among them (PCA factors). To maximize the sum of the within-factor variances, we used a VARIMAX rotated PCA model. The aim of this additional rotation was to obtain a simple structure where the coefficients within a factor are as close to one or zero as possible66.
In order to establish the faunal components, we selected for each one the genera that provide their highest contribution to a given PCA factor. That is, each genus belongs to only one faunal component based on which PCA factor includes the highest value for this genus in the escalated components matrix. Subsequently, we explored the species richness (number of species of each genera) for the genera comprised in each faunal component for each province. We did so because raw diversity patterns can provide complementary and insightful information for the interpretation of the changes in community structure.
We plotted the PCA factor scores and faunal components richness of each fossil site against time and applied a local regression fitting (LOESS) over the data to visualize their trend throughout time. This kind of representation reduces the influence of extreme data, which makes it appropriate for trend interpretation.
The number of sites in the two provinces considered differs: 90 sites in 13 basins in the southern province, 27 sites in 5 basins in the northern province. To assess how this difference might affect our results, we performed a complementary analysis following a bootstrapping approach. The sites per basin ratios are 5.4 and 6.9 in the northern and southern provinces respectively. To equal the sampling effort in both provinces, only 70 sites should be sampled in the southern province. Thus, we bootstrapped 1000 times 70 of the 90 sites without replacement and fitted 1000 species-diversity through-time curves for each of the FC. We then condensed these curves while plotting the confidence interval of the fitted values (see electronic supplementary information Figure S2). The patterns recovered from the bootstrapped subsets are highly consistent with those obtained from the raw data.
The geographical patterns of the species richness of each FC were analysed with the use of QGIS (http://www.qgis.org/en/site/). The interpolation tool implemented in QGIS was set with a distance interpolation parameter of 3. Our spatial interpolation was restricted to a radius of 500 km around each locality. We mapped these patterns in three temporal windows (12-6 to 11, 9.5 to 8 and 7.5 to 5 Ma), which were selected to represent the critical peaks and troughs of FC richness.
Finally, we evaluated the potential relationship between global climate changes and the temporal trends in rodent community structure by testing the correlation between the PCA factor scores of the fossil sites and the oxygen isotopic value (δ18O) associated with each locality as a proxy of the palaeotemperature. In order to perform this analysis, we fitted a smoothed curve to the isotopic information24 and interpolated an isotopic value for the age of each fossil site. Due to environmental differences between the northern and southern biogeographic provinces, independent correlations were calculated for the two bioprovinces.
References
Jiguet, F., Brotons, L. & Devictor, V. Community responses to extreme climatic conditions. Curr Zool 57, 406–413 (2011).
Wilson, J. B. Guilds, Functional Types and Ecological Groups. Oikos 86, 507–522 (1999).
Cantalapiedra, J. L., Hernández Fernández, M. & Morales, J. The history of ruminant faunas determines the phylogenetic structure of their assemblages at different scales. Ecography, 37, 1–9 (2014).
Sinclair, A. R. E. Mammal population regulation, keystone processes and ecosystem dynamics. Philos T Roy Soc B 358, 1729–1740, 10.1098/rstb.2003.1359 (2003).
Springer, D. A. & Bambach, R. K. Gradient versus cluster analysis of fossil assemblages: a comparison from the Ordovician of southwestern Virginia. Lethaia 18, 181–198, 10.1111/j.1502-3931.1985.tb00697.x (1985).
Nieto, M. & Rodríguez, J. Inferencia paleoecológica en mamíferos cenozoicos: limitaciones metodológicas. Col. Pa. Vol. Ext. 1, 459–474 (2003).
Yang, W., Ma, K. & Kreft, H. Geographical sampling bias in a large distributional database and its effects on species richness–environment models. J Biogeogr 1–12, 10.1111/jbi.12108 (2013).
Owen, R. J., Purvis, A. & Quicke, D. L. J. Latitudinal gradients in taxonomic overdescription rate affect macroecological inferences using species list data. Ecography. 34, 1–8, 10.1111/j.1600-0587.2011.06956.x (2011).
Pardi, M. I. & Smith, F. A. Paleoecology in an era of climate change: how the past can provide insights into the future. in Paleontology in Ecology and Conservation 93–113 (Springer Verlag, 2012).
Hernández Fernández, M. Bioclimatic discriminant capacity of terrestrial mammal faunas. Global Ecol Biogeogr 10, 189–204 (2001).
van Dam, J. A. & Weltje, G. J. Reconstruction of the Late Miocene climate of Spain using rodent palaeocommunity successions: an application of end-member modelling. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 151, 267–305, 10.1016/S0031-0182(99)00015-2 (1999).
Van der Meulen, A. J. & Daams, R. Evolution of Early-Middle Miocene rodent faunas in relation to long-term palaeoenvironmental changes. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 93, 227–253 (1992).
Daams, R., van der Meulen, A. J., Peláez-Campomanes, P. & Álvarez-Sierra, M. A. Trends in rodent assemblages from the Aragonian (Early-Middle Miocene) of the Calatayud-Daroca Basin, Aragon, Spain. in Hominoid evolution and climatic change in Europe. Vol. 1. The evolution of Neogene terrestrial ecosystems in Europe. (eds Agustí J., Rook L., & Andrews P.) 127–139 (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
van Dam, J. A. et al. Long-period astronomical forcing of mammal turnover. Nature 443, 687–691, 10.1038/nature05163 (2006).
Bruch, A. A., Utescher, T. & Mosbrugger, V. Precipitation patterns in the Miocene of Central Europe and the development of continentality. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 304, 202–211, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2010.10.002 (2011).
Mosbrugger, V., Utescher, T. & Dilcher, D. L. Cenozoic continental climatic evolution of Central Europe. PNAS 102, 14964–14969, 10.1073/pnas.0505267102 (2005).
Daams, R., Freudenthal, M. & Van der Meulen, A. J. Ecostratigraphy of micromammal faunas from the Neogene of Spain. Scripta Geol. 1, 287–302 (1988).
Daams, R. & van der Meulen, A. Paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic interpretation of micromammal faunal successions in the Upper Oligocene and Miocene of north central Spain. Paléobiologie Continentale 14, 241–257 (1984).
Maridet, O., Costeur, L. & Legendre, S. European Neogene rodent communities: explaining family-level replacements through a spatiotemporal approach. Historical Biology, 1–23, 10.1080/08912963.2012.739170 (2012).
Gómez Cano, A. R., Hernández Fernández, M. & Álvarez-Sierra, M. A. Biogeographic provincialism in rodent faunas from the Iberoccitanian Region (southwestern Europe) generates severe diachrony within the Mammalian Neogene (MN) biochronologic scale during the Late Miocene. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 307, 193–204, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2011.05.014 (2011).
Fejfar, O., Heinrich, W.-D., Kordos, L. & Maul, L. C. Microtoid cricetids and the early history of arvicolids (Mammalia, Rodentia). Palaeontol Electron 14, 1–38 (2011).
Kälin, D. Tribe Cricetini. in The Miocene Land Mammals of Europe (eds Rössner E., & Heissig K.) 373–387 (Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, 1999).
de Bruijn, H. Superfamily Sciuroidea. in The Miocene Land Mammals of Europe (eds Rössner E., & Heissig K.) 271–280 (Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, 1999).
Zachos, J. C., Dickens, G. R. & Zeebe, R. E. An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics. Nature 451, 279–283, 10.1038/nature06588 (2008).
Domingo, L., Koch, P. L., Grimes, S. T., Morales, J. & López-Martínez, N. Isotopic paleoecology of mammals and the Middle Miocene Cooling event in the Madrid Basin (Spain). Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 339–341, 98–113, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.04.026 (2012).
Domingo, L. et al. Late Neogene and early Quaternary paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic conditions in southwestern Europe: isotopic analyses on mammalian taxa. PLoS One 8, 1–15 e63739, 10.1371/journal.pone.0063739 (2013).
Fortelius, M. et al. Late Miocene and Pliocene large land mammals and climatic changes in Eurasia. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 238, 219–227, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2006.03.042 (2006).
Böhme, M., Winklhofer, M. & Ilg, A. Miocene precipitation in Europe: Temporal trends and spatial gradients. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 304, 212–218, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2010.09.028 (2011).
Daams, R. & de Bruijn, H. A classification of the Gliridae (Rodentia) on the basis of dental morphology. Hystrix 6, 3–50 (1995).
Casanovas-Vilar, I., van den Hoek Ostende, L. W., Furió, M. & Madern, P. A. The range and extent of the Vallesian Crisis (Late Miocene): new prospects based on the micromammal record from the Vallès-Penedès basin (Catalonia, Spain). J. iber. geol. 40, 29–48 (2014).
Domingo, M. S., Badgley, C., Azanza, B., DeMiguel, D. & Alberdi, M. T. Diversification of mammals from the Miocene of Spain. Paleobiology 40, 197–221 (2014).
Agustí, J., Garcés, M. & Krijgsman, W. Evidence for African–Iberian exchanges during the Messinian in the Spanish mammalian record. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 238, 5–14, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2006.03.013 (2006).
Bernor, R. L. et al. Recent Advances on Multidisciplinary Research at Rudabánya, Late Miocene (MN9), Hungary: a compendium. Paleontographia Italica 89, 3–36 (2002).
Geraads, D., Begun, D. R. & Güleç, E. The middle Miocene hominoid site of Çandir, Turkey: general paleoecological conclusions from the mammalian fauna. Cour. Forsch.inst. Senckenb. 240, 241–250 (2003).
Mercer, J. M. & Roth, V. L. The effects of Cenozoic global change on squirrel phylogeny. Science 299, 1568–1572, 10.1126/science.1079705 (2003).
Daxner-Höck, G. & Höck, E. New data on Eomyidae and Gliridae (Rodentia, Mammalia) from the Late Miocene of Austria. Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien 111, 375–444 (2009).
Mein, P. The Miocene Keramidomys (Rodentia, Eomyidae) from the Sandelzhausen locality (Germany). Paläontol Z 83, 141–150 (2009).
Daxner-Höck, G. Sciuridae, Gliridae and Eomyidae (Rodentia, Mammalia) from the Middle Miocene of St. Stefan in the Gratkorn Basin (Styria, Austria). Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien, Serie A 112, 507–536 (2010).
Costeur, L., Montuire, S., Legendre, S. & Maridet, O. The Messinian event: What happened to the peri-Mediterranean mammalian communities and local climate? Geobios 40, 423–431 (2007).
Sesé, C. Los roedores y lagomorfos del Neógeno de España. Est. Geol. 62, 429–480 (2006).
Van der Meulen, A. J., Peláez-Campomanes, P. & Levin, S. A. Age Structure, Residents and Transients of Miocene Rodent Communities. Am. Nat. 165, E108–E125, 10.1086/428683 (2005).
Casanovas-Vilar, I. & Agustí, J. Ecogeographical stability and climate forcing in the Late Miocene (Vallesian) rodent record of Spain. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 248, 169–189, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2006.12.002 (2007).
Agustí, J., Cabrera, L. & Garcés, M. The Vallesian Mammal Turnover: A Late Miocene record of decoupled land-ocean evolution. Geobios 46, 151–157, 10.1016/j.geobios.2012.10.005 (2013).
García-Alix, A., Minwer-Barakat, R., Martín-Suárez, E., Freudenthal, M. & Martín, J. M. Late Miocene-Early Pliocene climatic evolution of the Granada Basin (southern Spain) deduced from the paleoecology of the micromammal associations. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 265, 214–225, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2008.04.005 (2008).
LeCompte, E. et al. Phylogeny and biogeography of African Murinae based on mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences, with a new tribal classification of the subfamily. BMC Evol Biol 8, 199, 10.1186/1471-2148-8-199 (2008).
Wessels, W. Family Gerbillidae. in The Miocene land mammals of Europe (eds Rössner G. E., & Heissig K.) 395–400 (Verlag Dr. F. Pfeil, 1999).
Agustí, J. et al. A calibrated mammal scale for the Neogene of Western Europe. State of the art. Earth-Sci Rev 52, 247–260 (2001).
Maridet, O. et al. Small mammal (rodents and lagomorphs) European biogeography from the Late Oligocene to the mid Pliocene. Global Ecol Biogeogr 16, 529–544, 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2006.00306.x (2007).
Pavlinov, I. Y. A Review of Phylogeny and Classification of Gerbillinae (Mammalia: Rodentia). A Review of Phylogeny and Classification of Gerbillinae (Mammalia: Rodentia) 9, 1–73 (2008).
Koufos, G. D., Kostopoulos, D. S. & Vlachou, T. D. Neogene/Quaternary mammalian migrations in eastern Mediterranean. Belg J Zool 135, 181 (2005).
van der Made, J., Morales, J. & Montoya, P. Late Miocene turnover in the Spanish mammal record in relation to palaeoclimate and the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 238, 228–246 (2006).
Samuels, J. X. Paleoecology and functional morphology of beavers (family Castoridae), Thesis. University of California, Los Angeles, (2007).
Gibert, L. et al. Evidence for an African-Iberian mammal dispersal during the pre-evaporitic Messinian. Geology 41, 691–694 (2013).
Morales, J. et al. The Ventian mammal age (Lastest Miocene): present state. SJP 28, 149–160 (2013).
Fauquette, S. et al. How much did climate force the Messinian salinity crisis? Quantified climatic conditions from pollen records in the Mediterranean region. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 238, 281–301, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2006.03.029 (2006).
Mai, D. H. Development and regional differentiation of the European vegetation during the Tertiary. Plant Syst. Evol. 162, 79–91 (1989).
Kovar-Eder, J. et al. Floristic trends in the vegetation of the Paratethys surrounding areas during Neogene time. in The evolution of western Eurasian Neogene Mammal Faunas (ed Bernor R. L., Fahlbusch V., & Mittmann H. W.) 395–413 (Columbia University Press, 1996).
Gómez, A. & Lunt, D. H. Refugia within refugia: patterns of phylogeographic concordance in the Iberian Peninsula. in Phylogeography of Southern European Refugia 155–188 (Springer, 2007).
Heikinheimo, H., Fortelius, M., Eronen, J. T. & Mannila, H. Biogeography of European land mammals shows environmentally distinct and spatially coherent clusters. J Biogeogr 34, 1053–1064 (2007).
Peláez-Campomanes, P. Micromamíferos del Paleogeno Continental Español: Sistemática, Biocronología y Paleoecología, Thesis. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, (1993).
Badiola, A. et al. The role of new Iberian finds in understanding European Eocene mammalian palaeobiogeography. Geologica Acta 7, 243–258 (2009).
Daams, R. & van der Weerd, A. Quantitative composition of rodent faunas in the Spanish Neogene and paleoecological implications. I & II. Proc K Ned Akad Wet Ser C Biol Med Sci 81, 448–473 (1978).
Hernández Fernández, M. & Vrba, E. S. Plio-Pleistocene climatic change in the Turkana Basin (East Africa): Evidence from large mammal faunas. J Hum Evol 50, 32, 10.1016/j.jhevol.2005.11.004 (2006).
Casanovas-Vilar, I., van den Hoek Ostende, L., Furió, M. & Madern, A. The range and extent of the Vallesian Crisis in its type area. J. iber. geol. 40, 29–48 (2014).
de Bonis, L., Bouvrain, G., Geeraads, D. & Koufos, G. Multivariate study of late Cenozoic mammalian faunal compositions and paleoecology. Paleontologia i Evolució 24, 25–93 (1992).
Jackson, J. E. A user's guide to Principal Components. (Wiley-Interscience, 2003).
Kohn, R., Schimek, M. G. & Smith, M. Spline and kernel regression for dependent data. in Smoothing and Regression: approaches, computation and application (ed Schimekk M. G.) (John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2000).
Acknowledgements
This is a contribution by the Palaeoclimatology, Macroecology and Macroevolution of Vertebrates research team (www.pmmv.com.es) of the Complutense University of Madrid as a part of the Research Group UCM 910607 on Evolution of Cenozoic Mammals and Continental Palaeoenvironments. We wish to acknowledge the partial financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, through the projects CGL2006-01773/BTE, CGL2010-19116/BOS and CGL2011-28877. We also wish to thank to Cormac de Brun for the language revision of the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
A.R.C.G., J.L.C. and M.H.F. conceptualized the research; A.R.G.C. prepared and analysed data; J.L.C. made Bootstrap and QGIS analysis; and A.R.C.G., J.L.C., M.H.F. and M.A.S. wrote the paper. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the data and provided significant input to the final manuscript.
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Electronic supplementary material
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information
Rights and permissions
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
About this article
Cite this article
Cano, A., Cantalapiedra, J., Álvarez-Sierra, M. et al. A macroecological glance at the structure of late Miocene rodent assemblages from Southwest Europe. Sci Rep 4, 6557 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep06557
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep06557
This article is cited by
-
Differential responses of Miocene rodent metacommunities to global climatic changes were mediated by environmental context
Scientific Reports (2018)
-
Multi-scale interplays of biotic and abiotic drivers shape mammalian sub-continental diversity over millions of years
Scientific Reports (2018)
-
Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction from Faunal Remains: Ecological Basics and Analytical Assumptions
Journal of Archaeological Research (2017)
-
Plio-Pleistocene climatic change had a major impact on the assembly and disassembly processes of Iberian rodent communities
Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments (2015)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.