Miocene/Pliocene shift: one step or several?

Meike Köhler, Salvador Moyà-Solà and Jordi Agusti
Additional contact information
Meike Köhler: Institut de Paleontologia M. Crusafont
Salvador Moyà-Solà: Institut de Paleontologia M. Crusafont
Jordi Agusti: Institut de Paleontologia M. Crusafont

Nature, 1998, vol. 393, issue 6681, 126-126

Abstract: Abstract Cerling et al.1 provide evidence of a worldwide expansion of biomass of plants using the C4 photosynthetic pathway about 8-6 million years (Myr) ago, recorded in the carbon isotope composition of the dental enamel of fossil herbivores. The authors claim that the expansion of C4 plants is accompanied by a “worldwide faunal change” and infer that “an important global ecological change was under way at this time”. For these statements to be true, the period of transition from C3 to C4 plants must prove to be contemporary with the period of faunal turnover, and both events must have taken place in the same geographic areas. At least, this is what the correlation of faunal and vegetation events provided by Cerling et al. seems to indicate.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/30124 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:393:y:1998:i:6681:d:10.1038_30124

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

DOI: 10.1038/30124

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 ().