@article{012f0bef11f14fe7b304733700dd9638,
title = "Fossil Giraffidae (Mammalia, Artiodactyla) from Lee Adoyta, Ledi-Geraru, and Late Pliocene Dietary Evolution in Giraffids from the Lower Awash Valley, Ethiopia",
abstract = "The giraffid fossils recovered from \textasciitilde{} 2.8–2.6 million year old (Ma) sediments from Lee Adoyta, Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia, are described here. Sivatherium maurusium and Giraffa cf. G. gracilis are the two identified taxa, with the former being more abundant than the latter. We interpret this skew of relative abundance to be of paleoenvironmental significance, as Sivatherium is rare and Giraffa is common in the adjacent, but older sediments of the Hadar Formation at Hadar (\textasciitilde{} 3.4 to 2.95 Ma), which was characterized by wooded and well-watered habitats through most of its sequence. Stable carbon isotope analyses show that Giraffa remained an obligate browser throughout the lower Awash Valley (LAV) sequence while Sivatherium underwent a dietary transition from a browser in the Hadar Formation to a grazer at Lee Adoyta. This dietary shift in Sivatherium reflects local environmental change through time in the LAV as open habitats spread during the late Pliocene. A compilation of isotopic data from other sites in eastern Africa shows that the LAV dietary shift in Sivatherium occurred roughly one million years earlier than in the Turkana Basin, Kenya, reflecting a spatiotemporally staggered expansion of C4 vegetation across eastern Africa.",
keywords = "Eastern Africa, Giraffidae, Isotopes, Pliocene, Sivatherium",
author = "John Rowan and Locke, \{Ellis M.\} and Robinson, \{Joshua R.\} and Christopher Campisano and Wynn, \{Jonathan G.\} and Kaye Reed",
note = "Funding Information: We thank the curators and staff of the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the Ethiopian National Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for access to fossil specimens in their care. We thank M. Ahamadin, A. Mohamed, and the Afar people for assisting with fieldwork. Thanks to N. Levin for compiling the paleosol data used here and to J. Norman for helping analyze samples at USF. Field and lab work in the Ledi-Geraru area was made possible by National Science Foundation (NSF BCS-1157351). This research was also made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. J. Rowan was supported by National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Thanks to J.R. Wible and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and support. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York. Copyright: Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",
year = "2017",
month = sep,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1007/s10914-016-9343-z",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "24",
pages = "359--371",
journal = "Journal of Mammalian Evolution",
issn = "1064-7554",
publisher = "Springer New York",
number = "3",
}