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Prista, Gonçalo Abreu; Estevens, Mário; Agostinho, Rui Jorge; Cachão, Mário
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2013 |
The disappearance of the European/North African Sirenia (Mammalia).
Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 387: 1-5. 2 figs. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2013.07.013 Oct. 1, 2013 (publ. online July 16, 2013).
–ABSTRACT: Sirenia inhabited the coastal waters of Europe and North Africa from the Eocene until the end of the Pliocene. They are the only herbivorous marine mammals, and their presence in the European/North African realm is supported by almost 400 fossil records. Their dependence on seagrass, as well as their ecological needs, limited their capability to adapt to the climate changes that occurred during the Cenozoic. Their disappearance from European and Mediterranean shores occurred in two different steps: 1) the European Atlantic extinction, related to global cooling and fragmentation of the seagrass meadows, which greatly reduced sirenia habitats and resources; 2) their disappearance from the Mediterranean, linked not to declining resources but to the onset of continental glaciations in the northern hemisphere.
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Prista, Gonçalo Abreu; Estevens, Mário; Agostinho, Rui Jorge; Cachão, Mário
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2014 |
Euro-North African Sirenia biodiversity as a response to climate variations.
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 410: 372-379. 6 tabs. 3 figs. DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2014.06.008. Sept. 15, 2014.
–ABSTRACT: Earth has a latitudinal biodiversity gradient in which more species inhabit tropical than polar regions. Frequently attributed to seasonality, this ecological pattern is applied to the evolution of the Euro-North African sirenians and its relation to Cenozoic climate change. Climate disruption, changes in seasonality, and geological processes such as sea level variations are statistically tested as primary drivers to explain sirenian evolution and regional (amphi-Mediterranean) sirenian speciation and biodiversity.
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