• DOI:10.1073/pnas.2118329119
• Corpus ID: 249644126

Male mastodon landscape use changed with maturation (late Pleistocene, North America)

@article{Miller2022MaleML,
  title={Male mastodon landscape use changed with maturation (late Pleistocene, North America)},
  author={Joshua H. Miller and Daniel C Fisher and Brooke Erin Crowley and Ross Secord and Bledar A. Konomi},
  journal={Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
  year={2022},
  volume={119}
}

• Joshua H. Miller, D. Fisher, +2 authors B. Konomi
• Published 13 June 2022
• Environmental Science, Geography
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Significance Fossil remains usually reveal little about lifetime landscape use beyond place of death, but ever-growing tusks of American mastodons (Mammut americanum) record this fundamental aspect of paleobiology. Using oxygen and strontium isotopes from a serially sampled male mastodon tusk, we reconstruct changing patterns of landscape use during his life. We find clear shifts in landscape use during adolescence and following maturation to adulthood, including increased monthly movements and development of a summer-only range and mating ground. The mastodon died in his inferred summer mating ground, far from landscapes used during other seasons. Mastodons had long gestation times, and late Pleistocene populations lived in harsh, rapidly changing environments. Seasonal landscape use and migration were likely critical for maximizing mastodon reproductive success.