Lifetime mobility of an Arctic woolly mammoth
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Authors
Organisational units
External Organisational units
- Alaska Stable Isotope Facility
- University of Ottawa
- University of Alaska Museum of the North
- Florida State University
- University of California, Santa Cruz
- Liaocheng University
- National Park Service
- University of Washington, Seattle
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Abstract
Little is known about woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) mobility and range. Here we use high temporal resolution sequential analyses of strontium isotope ratios along an entire 1.7-meter-long tusk to reconstruct the movements of an Arctic woolly mammoth that lived 17,100 years ago, during the last ice age. We use an isotope-guided random walk approach to compare the tusk's strontium and oxygen isotope profiles to isotopic maps. Our modeling reveals patterns of movement across a geographically extensive range during the animal's ~28-year life span that varied with life stages. Maintenance of this level of mobility by megafaunal species such as mammoth would have been increasingly difficult as the ice age ended and the environment changed at high latitudes.
Details
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 806-808 |
Number of pages | 3 |
Journal | Science |
Volume | 373.2021 |
Issue number | 6556 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 13 Aug 2021 |