Carnivore stable carbon isotope niches reflect predator-prey size relationships in African savannas

Abstract

Predator-prey size relationships are among the most important patterns underlying the structure and function of ecological communities. Indeed, these relationships have already been shown to be important for understanding patterns of macroevolution and differential extinction in the terrestrial vertebrate fossil record. Stable isotope analysis (SIA) is a powerful remote approach to examining animal diets and paleodiets. The approach is based on the principle that isotope compositions of consumer tissues reflect those of their prey. In systems where resource isotope compositions are distributed along a body size gradient, SIA could be used to reconstruct predator-prey size relationships. We analyzed stable carbon isotope distributions amongst mammalian herbivores in extant and Plio-Pleistocene African savanna assemblages, and show that the range of δ¹³ C values among mammalian prey species (herbivores and rodents) increases with body mass (BM), because C₄ plant feeding (essentially grazing) is more common among larger taxa. Consequently, δ¹³ C values of mammalian carnivores in these systems are related to species' BM, reflecting a higher average C₄ prey component in the diets of larger-bodied carnivores. This pattern likely emerges because only the largest carnivores in these systems have regular access to the C₄ prey base, whereas smaller carnivores do not. The δ¹³ C-BM relationship observed in mammalian carnivores is a potentially powerful approach for reconstructing and parameterizing predator-prey size relationships in contemporary and fossil savanna assemblages, and for interpreting how various behavioral, ecological and environmental factors influence prey size selection.

Keywords: body mass; carbonate; collagen; hair; pleistocene.