BookI.J. Gordon, Herbert H.T. Prins, editors.
Summary: Large herbivorous mammals have a long history of adaptation to changing environmental circumstances. Many groups of mammalian herbivores started as omnivores and opportunistic browsers of fruits and other plant parts, later adapting to increasingly specialised leaf browsing, and finally to grazing as open grass-dominated environments spread following climatic cooling and drying during the Neogene. Changes in global climate led to vegetational changes in terrestrial ecosystems, which resulted in changes in the proportions of browsing and grazing species in the ungulate guilds. There is currently a range of proxy methods to assess diets and feeding ecology of large extinct herbivorous mammals, including dental microwear and mesowear analyses and stable isotope analyses. Together these methods have enabled an increasingly diverse and fine-scale understanding of the dietary variation of herbivorous mammals throughout the Cenozoic, providing a more detailed picture than traditional comparative ecomorphology approaches alone. This chapter will provide an up-to-date assessment of the analytical methods of determining the diet of extinct large herbivorous mammal taxa, and provide insights into changes in the assemblages of browsing and grazing mammals and how these relate to changes to climate and the evolution of different plant forms.
Contents:
The Ecology of Browsing and Grazing II / Iain J. Gordon and Herbert H.T. Prins
The Palaeontology of Browsing and Grazing / Juha Saarinen
The Paleoecological Impact of Grazing and Browsing: Consequences of the Late Quaternary Large Herbivore Extinctions / John Rowan and J.T. Faith
Morphological and Physiological Adaptations for Browsing and Grazing / Daryl Codron, Reinhold R. Hofmann, and Marcus Clauss
Feeding Ecology of Large Browsing and Grazing Herbivores / Jan. A. Venter, Mike M. Vermeulen, and Christopher F. Brooke
Population Dynamics of Browsing and Grazing Ungulates in the Anthropocene / Christian Kiffner and Derek E. Lee
Community Dynamics of Browsing and Grazing Ungulates / Charudutt Mishra, Minib Khanyari, Herbert H.T. Prins, and Kulbhushansingh R. Suryawanshi
Weather and Climate Impacts on Browsing and Grazing Ungulates / Randall B. Boone
Impacts of Browsing and Grazing Ungulates on Soil Biota and Nutrient Dynamics / Judith Sitters and Walter S. Andriuzzi
Effects of Grazing and Browsing on Tropical Savanna Vegetation / Frank van Langevelde, Claudius A.D.M. van de Vijver, Herbert H.T. Prins, and Thomas A. Groen
Impacts of Browsing and Grazing Ungulates on Plant Characteristics and Dynamics / Autumn E. Sabo
Impacts of Browsing and Grazing Ungulates on Faunal Biodiversity / Krisztián Katona and Corli Coetsee
Interactions Between Fire and Herbivory: Current Understanding and Management Implications / Izak P.J. Smit and Corli Coetsee
Managing Browsing and Grazing Ungulates / Richard W.S. Flynn, David J. Augustine, and Samuel D. Fuhlendorf
The Ecology of Browsing and Grazing in Other Vertebrate Taxa / Iain J. Gordon, Herbert H.T. Prins, Jordan Mallon, Laura D. Puk, Everton B.P. Miranda, Carolina Starling-Manne, René van der Wal, Ben Moore, William Foley, Lucy Lush, Renan Maestri, Ikki Matsuda, and Marcus Clauss
Browsers and Grazers Drive the Dynamics of Ecosystems / Iain J. Gordon and Herbert H.T. Prins.