An ancient hunter’s bone -avoiding diet shift indicates climate change

About 56 56 million years ago, when the Earth rose dramatically, a meat eating stagnant responded amazingly: he started eating more bones.

The researchers have been concluded by a team-led team, whose recent study of fossil dental dental dental related hunters shows how animals have adapted to the period of extreme climate change, which is more known as Palosian-Ausian thermal. Results published in the journal Pelogeography, Pelvicamytology, PelvicologyScientists can help predict how today’s wildlife can respond to modern global heat.

“What is happening during the PETM is happening today and what will happen in the future,” said Andrew Schwartz, a doctorate student at the School of Arts and Sciences Department. “We are watching the same samples. Carbon dioxide levels are rising, temperatures are high and the ecosystem is interrupted.”

Robert Scott is the co -author of this study, Associate Professor of the Department of Anthropology. Schwartz, Scott and another colleague used a technique called a dental microware texture analysis to study the small pits and scratches that were left on fossilized teeth. These marks show how the animal was chewing in the weeks before he died.

The ancient omnivor was about the size of a jacquel or coyote and dominant. I used to eat meat and other foods such as fruits and insects. Schwartz described them as “the most strange,” said, “They looked like a large -scale wolves.” “Their teeth were like a hannas.

Prior to this rising temperature, Dussex had ate a diet like modern leafy, mostly ate hard meat. But during and after this ancient period, his teeth showed signs of crushing hard materials like bones.

“We have learned that their dental microware looks like lions and hiina,” said Schwartz. “This shows that they were eating more easily breaking foods, which were probably bones, because their routine hunting was small or less available.”

This nutritional change has occurred in the body with a slight decrease in size, possibly due to the lack of food. Schwartz said that although the preceding hypothetical ideas have just blamed animals for shrinking at hot temperatures, the latest research shows that limited food played a major role.

The period of rapid global warming lasted for about 200,000 years, but the changes made by its changes were sharp and dramatic. Schwartz said that past studies, such as it can offer a practical lesson for today and what comes after that.

“One of the best ways to know what is going to happen in the future is to look at the past,” he said. “How did the animals change? What did the environmental system respond?”

He said that these results also highlighted the importance of nutritional flexibility. Animals that can eat a variety of foods are more likely to avoid environmental stress.

“In the short term, it is great to be the best in your work,” said Schwartz. “But in the long run, it is dangerous. The generalist, which means animals that are good in many things, are more likely to survive when the environment changes.”

He said such insights could be helpful for modern protection organisms, which could make them identify which generation today could be the weakest. Tight food animals, such as a panda, can struggle as they shrink their residence. But adaptable species, including jackal or rackens, can improve.

“We are already watching this happening,” said Schwartz. “In my previous research, Jacques in Africa started eating more bones and insects over time, perhaps because of the reduction of residence and climate pressure.”

This study also shows that the heat of the climate that is seen during the ancient past can lead to major changes in the ecosystem, which includes changes in available hunting and a change in hunter behavior. He said that it can suggest that modern climate change can disrupt the nets in the same way and force animals to adopt, or force them to eliminate the risk.

Although Discussion was a successful and adaptable animal that survived for about 15 million years, it eventually disappeared. Schwartz said scientists believe it was due to changes in the environment and competition with other animals.

Schwartz did his research using a combination of fieldwork and lab analysis, which focused on the samples from Bigorin Basin in Wooming, a site that has a full and permanent recession record over millions of years. Schwartz chose this place as it preserves a detailed set of environmental and climate change during the ancient period of climate.

Schwartz is particularly interested in dinosaur, pelvicology, since he was a boy, along with his father, an amateur fossil hunter, traveling on the way to the rivers and rivers of New Jersey. Now, as a late -phase doctorate student, he hopes to use ancient gems to answer immediate questions about the future.

He also wants to impress the next generation of researchers.

“I like to share this,” he said. “If I look at a dinosaur in a museum, I say, ‘Hey, I’m a specialist. You can do it too.”