2022/04/12 by Thayara S. Carrasco, Carolina Saldanha Scherer, Ana María Ribeiro +1 · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Psychology · #Isotope Analysis in Ecology #Evolution and Paleontology Studies #Primate Behavior and Ecology
paper · doi:10.1017/pab.2022.10
openalex publication_date 2022/04/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract Camelids (Camelidae) were a diverse and widely distributed group in South America during the Pleistocene. According to the fossil record, three species inhabited southern Brazil in the recent past: Hemiauchenia paradoxa , Lama guanicoe , and Vicugna vicugna . The analysis of carbon and oxygen stable isotope ratios in bioapatite provides insight into the paleobiology of nonliving animals and the environment they used to inhabit. We applied this tool to investigate the diet of camelids from two geological localities in southern Brazil: Touro Passo and Santa Vitória Formations ( H. paradoxa , n = 7; L. guanicoe , n = 6; V. vicugna , n = 4). Carbon stable isotopes from enamel, dentin, and bone indicated that H. paradoxa and L. guanicoe had diets comprising mostly C 3 grasses, but the latter showed a broader diet due to one individual with a mixed diet, whereas V. vicugna had a mixed C 3 –C 4 diet. These different foraging behaviors may have minimized interspecific competition and favored niche partitioning and the coexistence of related species. Combined oxygen and carbon isotope data showed a consistent diet according to climate, probably due to the greater availability in glacial periods of cool-season grasses, which mainly use the C 3 photosynthetic pathway. Given their adaptations to grazing, the climate amelioration, followed by the loss of grasslands, likely had a great impact on camelid populations, leading to their extinction in southern Brazil. These results, therefore, contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of paleocommunities in this region.