A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars
The skeletal remains of a small bear (Protarctos abstrusus) were collected at the Beaver Pond fossil site in the High Arctic (Ellesmere I., Nunavut). This mid-Pliocene deposit has also yielded 12 other mammals and the remains of a boreal-forest community. Phylogenetic analysis reveals this bear to b...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5735171 2023-05-15T14:55:05+02:00 A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars Wang, Xiaoming Rybczynski, Natalia Harington, C. Richard White, Stuart C. Tedford, Richard H. 2017-12-18 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5735171/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29255278 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17657-8 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5735171/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29255278 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17657-8 © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Article Text 2017 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17657-8 2017-12-24T01:23:00Z The skeletal remains of a small bear (Protarctos abstrusus) were collected at the Beaver Pond fossil site in the High Arctic (Ellesmere I., Nunavut). This mid-Pliocene deposit has also yielded 12 other mammals and the remains of a boreal-forest community. Phylogenetic analysis reveals this bear to be basal to modern bears. It appears to represent an immigration event from Asia, leaving no living North American descendants. The dentition shows only modest specialization for herbivory, consistent with its basal position within Ursinae. However, the appearance of dental caries suggest a diet high in fermentable-carbohydrates. Fossil plants remains, including diverse berries, suggests that, like modern northern black bears, P. abstrusus may have exploited a high-sugar diet in the fall to promote fat accumulation and facilitate hibernation. A tendency toward a sugar-rich diet appears to have arisen early in Ursinae, and may have played a role in allowing ursine lineages to occupy cold habitats. Text Arctic Nunavut PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Beaver Pond ENVELOPE(-56.848,-56.848,49.600,49.600) Nunavut Scientific Reports 7 1 |
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Article Wang, Xiaoming Rybczynski, Natalia Harington, C. Richard White, Stuart C. Tedford, Richard H. A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars |
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The skeletal remains of a small bear (Protarctos abstrusus) were collected at the Beaver Pond fossil site in the High Arctic (Ellesmere I., Nunavut). This mid-Pliocene deposit has also yielded 12 other mammals and the remains of a boreal-forest community. Phylogenetic analysis reveals this bear to be basal to modern bears. It appears to represent an immigration event from Asia, leaving no living North American descendants. The dentition shows only modest specialization for herbivory, consistent with its basal position within Ursinae. However, the appearance of dental caries suggest a diet high in fermentable-carbohydrates. Fossil plants remains, including diverse berries, suggests that, like modern northern black bears, P. abstrusus may have exploited a high-sugar diet in the fall to promote fat accumulation and facilitate hibernation. A tendency toward a sugar-rich diet appears to have arisen early in Ursinae, and may have played a role in allowing ursine lineages to occupy cold habitats. |
format |
Text |
author |
Wang, Xiaoming Rybczynski, Natalia Harington, C. Richard White, Stuart C. Tedford, Richard H. |
author_facet |
Wang, Xiaoming Rybczynski, Natalia Harington, C. Richard White, Stuart C. Tedford, Richard H. |
author_sort |
Wang, Xiaoming |
title |
A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars |
title_short |
A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars |
title_full |
A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars |
title_fullStr |
A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars |
title_full_unstemmed |
A basal ursine bear (Protarctos abstrusus) from the Pliocene High Arctic reveals Eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars |
title_sort |
basal ursine bear (protarctos abstrusus) from the pliocene high arctic reveals eurasian affinities and a diet rich in fermentable sugars |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5735171/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29255278 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17657-8 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-56.848,-56.848,49.600,49.600) |
geographic |
Arctic Beaver Pond Nunavut |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Beaver Pond Nunavut |
genre |
Arctic Nunavut |
genre_facet |
Arctic Nunavut |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5735171/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29255278 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17657-8 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17657-8 |
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Scientific Reports |
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7 |
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