Data from: Bison body size and climate change ...

• Main Authors: Martin, Jeff M., Mead, Jim I., Barboza, Perry S.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2019
• Subjects: Anthropocene; Late Pleistocene; Bison bison; body size change; Late Quaternary; Holocene; Bergmann's rule; Greenland; Bison bison bison
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hp38ct1; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.hp38ct1

The relationship between body size and temperature of mammals is poorly resolved, especially for large keystone species such as bison (Bison bison). Bison are well-represented in the fossil record across North America, which provides an opportunity to relate body size to climate within a species. We measured the length of a leg bone (calcaneal tuber, DstL) in 849 specimens from 60 localities that were dated by stratigraphy and 14C decay. We estimated body mass (M) as: M = (DstL/11.49) 3. Average annual temperature was estimated from δ18O values in the ice cores from Greenland. Calcaneal tuber length of Bison declined over the last 40,000 years, that is, average body mass was 37% larger (910 ± 50 kg) than today (665 ± 21 kg). Average annual temperature has warmed by 6°C since the Last Glacial Maximum (~24-18 kya) and is predicted to further increase by 4°C by the end of the 21st century. If body size continues to linearly respond to global temperature, Bison body mass will likely decline by an additional 46%, ... : Bison body size and climate change datasetLocality information: name, geologic age, latitude, longitude, specimen numbers, specimen voucher list, locality summary statistics, GISP2 temperature, linear osteometrics, species, elevation, etc.Bison_fullDB for MS.xlsx ...