Vertebrate community on an ice-age Caribbean island.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Steadman DW
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4640788 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Vertebrate community on an ice-age Caribbean island.
Steadman David W DW Albury Nancy A NA Kakuk Brian B Mead Jim I JI Soto-Centeno J Angel JA Singleton Hayley M HM Franklin Janet J
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20151019 44
We report 95 vertebrate taxa (13 fishes, 11 reptiles, 63 birds, 8 mammals) from late Pleistocene bone deposits in Sawmill Sink, Abaco, The Bahamas. The >5,000 fossils were recovered by scuba divers on ledges at depths of 27-35 m below sea level. Of the 95 species, 39 (41%) no longer occur on Abaco (4 reptiles, 31 birds, 4 mammals). We estimate that 17 of the 39 losses (all of them birds) are linked to changes during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition (PHT) (∼ 15-9 ka) in climate (becoming more ...[more]
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