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Limited herbivore migration during the Last Glacial Period of Kenya

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 8, pages 1191–1198 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Eastern Africa is home to the largest terrestrial migrations on Earth. Though these migratory systems have been well studied for decades, little is known of their antiquity and evolutionary history. Serially sampled strontium stable isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) from tooth enamel can be used to track migration in mammals. Here we analyse 87Sr/86Sr for 79 bovid and equid individuals representing 18 species from four localities in Kenya to characterize prehistoric migratory systems during the Last Glacial Period (115–11.7 ka). Of the species analysed, 16 lack definitive evidence for migration, including blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), Thomson’s gazelle (Eudorcas thomsonii) and plains zebra (Equus quagga), which are long-distance migrants today in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem and historically in the Athi-Kapiti Plains. Only two species, the extinct wildebeests Rusingoryx atopocranion and Megalotragus sp., were migratory. These findings suggest a possible alternative narrative about ecosystem dynamics during the Last Glacial Period and shed light on the behaviour of both extant and extinct species at this time. In particular, these results indicate that migratory behaviour in extant species either emerged during the Holocene or was more spatiotemporally constrained in the past. Our results contribute to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the structure and function of geologically recent large mammal communities in eastern Africa differed considerably from those observed in the present day.

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Fig. 1: 87Sr/86Sr isoscape of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.
Fig. 2: 87Sr/86Sr results for each individual.
Fig. 3: Subsampled standard deviations of 87Sr/86Sr for each individual.

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Data availability

All raw data associated with this work are available in supplementary tables.

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Acknowledgements

Stable isotope processing was funded by the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant no. 2234426 to J.T.F. and K.O. and Graduate Research Fellowship (fellow ID 2020294514) to K.O., a Graduate Research Grant from the Leakey Foundation to K.O., the Dawson Grant from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology to K.O. and a University of Utah Global Change and Sustainability Center Graduate Research Grant to K.O. We thank J. Rowan and A. Janzen for their roles in conceiving this project and S. Muteti and E. Ndiema for allowing destructive analysis on specimens at the National Museums of Kenya.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Kaedan O’Brien & J. Tyler Faith

  2. Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Kaedan O’Brien & J. Tyler Faith

  3. Department of Anthropology, SUNY Oneonta, Oneonta, NY, USA

    Kaedan O’Brien

  4. Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

    Katya Podkovyroff

  5. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Diego P. Fernandez & Thure E. Cerling

  6. Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Christian A. Tryon

  7. Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

    Christian A. Tryon

  8. Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Thure E. Cerling

  9. National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

    Lilian Ashioya

  10. Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    J. Tyler Faith

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Contributions

K.O. and J.T.F. conceived the project. K.O., J.T.F., C.A.T. and T.E.C. provided funding. K.O., L.A., T.E.C., K.P. and D.P.F. conducted stable isotope analyses. K.O. wrote the paper. All authors provided paper feedback and gave final approval for paper publication.

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Correspondence to Kaedan O’Brien.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks Abraham Dabengwa, Daniel Green and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Supplementary text and Figs. 1–83.

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Supplementary Tables 1 and 2

Supplementary Table 1. Results of 87Sr/86Sr and elemental ratios for all samples. Supplementary Table 2. Subsampled standard deviation values for all individuals and classification as migrant, possible migrant or non-migrant.

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O’Brien, K., Podkovyroff, K., Fernandez, D.P. et al. Limited herbivore migration during the Last Glacial Period of Kenya. Nat Ecol Evol 8, 1191–1198 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02413-9

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