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High C/N ratio (not low-energy content) of vegetation may have driven gigantism in sauropod dinosaurs and perhaps omnivory and/or endothermy in their juveniles

Publication Type:Journal Article
Year of Publication:2013
Authors:Wilkinson, DM, Ruxton, GD
Journal:Functional Ecology
Volume:27
Issue:1
Date Published:2013
ISBN Number:1365-2435
Keywords:C/N, dinosaur, plant biochemistry, sauropod, stoichiometry
Abstract:

* Sauropod dinosaurs were the largest terrestrial animals ever, and the combination of selective pressures that might have lead to such extraordinary sizes has long been discussed. * Here, we argue that a previous suggestion that large size may be a response to unusually high C/N ratios in available plant foods has been prematurely discarded. C/N ratios were likely to be high during much of the Mesozoic, and C/N ratio is entirely different from gross energy density as a measure of the value of a plant as food. In addition, we use recently published allometric equations for herbivore nitrogen and carbon use to make tentative calculations which suggest that if Mesozoic C/N ratios were greater than extant ones, this would have selected for one of two strategies: gigantism in ectothermic herbivores or endothermy (and selective foraging on high N material) in very small herbivores. * We speculate that smaller-bodied juvenile sauropods might have had a broader omnivorous diet and/or had higher mass-specific metabolic rates than adults. The former is potentially testable by changes in dentition; the latter matches evidence of high growth rates of juvenile sauropods.

URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.12033
Short Title:Functional Ecology
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