Dietary changes of large herbivores in the Turkana Basin, Kenya from 4 to 1 Ma

Abstract

Significance Stable carbon isotopes give diet information for both modern and fossil mammals and can be used to classify diets as C 4 grazers, C 3 –C 4 mixed, or C 3 browsers. We show that diets of some major African herbivore lineages have significantly changed over the past 4 million years by comparing fossils from the Turkana Basin in Kenya with modern mammals from East and Central Africa. Some fossil assemblages have no modern analogues in East and Central Africa, suggesting different ecological functions for some mammals in the past as compared with their modern counterparts. The development of modern tropical grassland ecosystems are products of the coevolution of both grasses and herbivores.