A portrait of the C4 photosynthetic family on the 50th anniversary of its discovery: species number, evolutionary lineages, and Hall of Fame

RF Sage - Journal of experimental botany, 2017 - academic.oup.com
Fifty years ago, the C4 photosynthetic pathway was first characterized. In the subsequent
five decades, much has been learned about C4 plants, such that it is now possible to place …

The temporal scale of diet and dietary proxies

M Davis, S Pineda‐Munoz - Ecology and evolution, 2016 - Wiley Online Library
Diets estimated from different proxies such as stable isotopes, stomach contents, and dental
microwear often disagree, leading to nominally well‐supported but greatly differing …

Expanded geographic distribution and dietary strategies of the earliest Oldowan hominins and Paranthropus

TW Plummer, JS Oliver, EM Finestone, PW Ditchfield… - Science, 2023 - science.org
The oldest Oldowan tool sites, from around 2.6 million years ago, have previously been
confined to Ethiopia's Afar Triangle. We describe sites at Nyayanga, Kenya, dated to 3.032 …

Aridity and hominin environments

SA Blumenthal, NE Levin, FH Brown… - Proceedings of the …, 2017 - National Acad Sciences
Aridification is often considered a major driver of long-term ecological change and hominin
evolution in eastern Africa during the Plio-Pleistocene; however, this hypothesis remains …

Early hominins evolved within non-analog ecosystems

JT Faith, J Rowan, A Du - Proceedings of the National …, 2019 - National Acad Sciences
Present-day African ecosystems serve as referential models for conceptualizing the
environmental context of early hominin evolution, but the degree to which modern …

Neogene biomarker record of vegetation change in eastern Africa

KT Uno, PJ Polissar, KE Jackson… - Proceedings of the …, 2016 - National Acad Sciences
The evolution of C4 grassland ecosystems in eastern Africa has been intensely studied
because of the potential influence of vegetation on mammalian evolution, including that of …

The evolution of hominoid locomotor versatility: Evidence from Moroto, a 21 Ma site in Uganda

LM MacLatchy, SM Cote, AL Deino, RM Kityo… - Science, 2023 - science.org
Living hominoids are distinguished by upright torsos and versatile locomotion. It is
hypothesized that these features evolved for feeding on fruit from terminal branches in …

Plio-Pleistocene decline of African megaherbivores: No evidence for ancient hominin impacts

JT Faith, J Rowan, A Du, PL Koch - Science, 2018 - science.org
It has long been proposed that pre-modern hominin impacts drove extinctions and shaped
the evolutionary history of Africa's exceptionally diverse large mammal communities, but this …

An ecometric analysis of the fossil mammal record of the Turkana Basin

M Fortelius, I Žliobaitė, F Kaya… - … of the Royal …, 2016 - royalsocietypublishing.org
Although ecometric methods have been used to analyse fossil mammal faunas and
environments of Eurasia and North America, such methods have not yet been applied to the …

Palaeoenvironments and hominin evolutionary dynamics in southeast Asia

AM Bacon, N Bourgon, E Dufour, F Demeter… - Scientific reports, 2023 - nature.com
Secure environmental contexts are crucial for hominin interpretation and comparison. The
discovery of a Denisovan individual and associated fauna at Tam Ngu Hao 2 (Cobra) Cave …