Global vegetation change through the Miocene/Pliocene boundary

Thure E. Cerling (), John M. Harris, Bruce J. MacFadden, Meave G. Leakey, Jay Quade, Vera Eisenmann and James R. Ehleringer
Additional contact information
Thure E. Cerling: University of Utah
John M. Harris: George C. Page Museum
Bruce J. MacFadden: Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida
Meave G. Leakey: The National Museums of Kenya
Jay Quade: University of Arizona
Vera Eisenmann: Laboratoire de Paléontologie, Museé National d'Histoire Naturelle
James R. Ehleringer: University of Utah

Nature, 1997, vol. 389, issue 6647, 153-158

Abstract: Abstract Between 8 and 6 million years ago, there was a global increase in the biomass of plants using C4 photosynthesis as indicated by changes in the carbon isotope ratios of fossil tooth enamel in Asia, Africa, North America and South America. This abrupt and widespread increase in C4 biomass may be related to a decrease in atmospheric CO2 concentrations below a threshold that favoured C3-photosynthesizing plants. The change occurred earlier at lower latitudes, as the threshold for C3 photosynthesis is higher at warmer temperatures.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/38229 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:389:y:1997:i:6647:d:10.1038_38229

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/38229

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().