Herbivore Niche Differentiation and the Intensification of Competition in African Savannahs

• Applicant: Faysal Bibi, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2015 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 282995372

• Final Report Year: 2021

Final Report Abstract

This project has explored patterns and processes in the morphological evolution of large herbivorous mammals. Accomplishments of the project include: 1, development of a large morphological dataset for total-evidence analyses of ruminant evolution including both fossil and extant species; 2, description of new fossil antelope (bovid) remains from the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene of eastern Africa; 3, assembly of a large dataset of 3D surface scans of extant and fossil ruminants, description of cranial shape in extant and fossil bovid taxa, and determination of modes of evolution as well as changes in shape disparity over time; and 4, assembly of a large dataset of extant and fossil mammal dental measurements, development of a method of estimation of body mass in fossil specimens, exploration of changes in body mass and patterns of body size distribution in the African fossil record. Unexpected results included 1) the high morphological overlap of bovid tribes in overal cranial morphospace, and the lack of significance of diet as a predictor of cranial shape, and 2) the discovery of size-abundance distributions in African large mammal fossil assemblages that resemble those of extant communities and that appear to reflect energy equivalence despite taphonomic and collection biases. Antilopen-Scan in Mitte, Der Tagesspiegel, 13. October 2017 https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/berliner-naturkundemuseum-antilopen-scan-in-mitte/20443396.html Lernen vom Gnu, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2. November 2017 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/palaeontologie-lernen-vom-gnu-1.3732994

Publications

• 2017. Late Pliocene Bovidae from Ledi-Geraru (Lower Awash Valley, Ethiopia) and their Implications for Afar Paleoecology. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 37:e1337639
  Bibi F., Rowan J. & Reed K.
  
• 2018. Dietary traits of the ungulates from the HWK EE site at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania): Diachronic changes and seasonality. Journal of Human Evolution 120:203-214
  Rivals, F., K. T. Uno, F. Bibi, M. C. Pante, J. Njau, and I. de la Torre
  
• 2018. Large mammal diets and paleoecology across the Oldowan–Acheulean transition at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania from stable isotope and tooth wear analyses. Journal of Human Evolution 120: 48-75
  Uno, K. T., Rivals, F., Bibi, F., Pante, M., Njau, J., & de la Torre, I.
  
• 2018. Paleoecology of the Serengeti during the Oldowan-Acheulean transition at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: the mammal and fish evidence. Journal of Human Evolution 120: 48-75
  Bibi F., Pante M., Souron A., Stewart K. M., Varela S., Werdelin L., Boisserie J.-R., Fortelius M., Hlusko L. J., Njau J. K. & De La Torre I.