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How Niche Overlap Between Carnivoramorphans and Creodonts Changed from the Start to the End of the Eocene

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How Niche Overlap Between Carnivoramorphans and Creodonts Changed from the Start to the End of the Eocene Testing the competition hypothesis: How niche overlap between carnivoramorphans and creodonts changed from the start to the end of the Eocene by Brigid Emily Christison A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biology Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario 2020 © Brigid Emily Christison Abstract Carnivoramorphans and creodonts are two groups of ancestrally carnivorous mammals that both emerged in the Paleocene (66–56 Ma) of North America. During the Eocene (56–33.9 Ma), carnivoramorphans radiated into some of the taxonomic groups we still see today, while creodont diversity declined until the group went extinct in North America during the Oligocene (33.9–23 Ma) and worldwide during the Miocene (23–5.3 Ma). In this thesis, I test the hypothesis that competition with carnivoramorphans may have led to the extinction of the creodonts in North America by examining changes in niche overlap between the two groups from the start to the end of the Eocene. My results do not support the competition hypothesis, but instead suggest that creodonts were hyperspecialized and un-equipped for the dramatically different environments of the late Eocene and early Oligocene. ii Acknowledgements Land acknowledgement The fossils examined in this study were collected predominantly on Cession 517, 632, and 700 land. These are the territories of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation, Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of the Cheyenne River Reservation, Crow Creek Sioux Tribe of the Crow Creek Reservation, Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of the Lower Brule Reservation, Lower Sioux Indian Community in the State of Minnesota, Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation, Prairie Island Indian Community in the State of Minnesota, Rosebud Sioux Tribe of the Rosebud Indian Reservation, Santee Sioux Nation, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Minnesota, Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation, Spirit Lake Tribe, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North & South Dakota, Upper Sioux Community, Yankton Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, and the Crow Tribe of Montana. This land acknowledgment was made possible through the use of Native-Land.ca and subsequent research. During the creation of this manuscript, seven natural history museums in Canada and the United States were visited for data collection. I recognize that natural history museums are colonial institutions that were created to lay claim over stolen land and resources, and that the buildings themselves displace the traditional inhabitants of the land they are on. The research and work that went into this manuscript took place predominantly on the unceded territories of the Algonquin Anishinabeg People. iii Personal acknowledgements I would like to sincerely thank my supervisors, Dr. Danielle Fraser and Dr. Jeff Dawson. Dani has supported me since my undergraduate degree and has been a valued mentor and friend, and I am grateful for her guidance. I would also like to thank the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Roslyn Dakin, Dr. Tom Sherratt, and Dr. Emily Standen, for their suggestions and encouragement during the development of my thesis, and Dr. Sue Bertram for acting as my defense chair. Thanks goes to NSERC for funding my research assistantship, the Jackson Travel Award through SVP, and to the Donald R. Wiles Prize (Carleton University biology department) for additional funding. Special thanks to the administration staff, collections managers, and lab technicians who assisted me during the data collection that went into this thesis, namely: Dan Brinkman, Marilyn Fox, Judy Galkin, Verne Lee, Amanda Millhouse, Adam Rountry, and Kevin Seymour. Thanks goes to members of the Fraser and Maddin Labs for their insightful comments during weekly lab meetings. I would like to thank Dr. Hillary Maddin for her guidance and support during my academic career. Thanks to Dr. Jordan Mallon and Margaret Currie, for supervising my early experiences at the Canadian Museum of Nature, and for teaching me the fundamentals of navigating museum collections. Most importantly I am grateful to my parents for their confidence in my abilities, and to my close friends for cheering me on. Their endless support is the reason I was able to write this thesis while not allowing my job to consume my personal life. Finally, I am grateful to all of the pet carnivorans in my life who continue to inspire my research and fascination with science. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... iii Land acknowledgement .............................................................................................................. iii Personal acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... iv Table of contents ............................................................................................................................. v List of tables ................................................................................................................................... vii List of illustrations ......................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Extinction ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Resource competition ........................................................................................................... 3 1.3 The ecological niche .............................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Inferring niche overlap from morphology ............................................................................. 6 1.5 Niche overlap and competition ........................................................................................... 10 1.6 Carnivoramorpha and “Creodonta” during the Eocene ..................................................... 13 1.7 Competition hypothesis ...................................................................................................... 17 1.8 Study objective .................................................................................................................... 19 1.9 Hypothesis and predictions ................................................................................................. 23 1.10 Structure of this thesis ...................................................................................................... 23 Chapter 2: Comparison of the efficacy of 2D and 3D tooth shape morphometrics for predicting the diets of carnivorous mammals .............................................................................................. 24 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 24 2.2 Methods .............................................................................................................................. 30 2.3 Results ................................................................................................................................. 34 2.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 46 2.5 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 52 Chapter 3: Testing the competition hypothesis: How niche overlap between carnivoramorphans and creodonts changed from the start to the end of the Eocene ............................................... 53 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 53 3.2 Methods .............................................................................................................................. 59 3.3 Results ................................................................................................................................. 68 v 3.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 80 3.5 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 83 Chapter 4: Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 85 References .................................................................................................................................... 89 Appendices ................................................................................................................................. 110 Appendix A .............................................................................................................................. 110 Appendix B .............................................................................................................................
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