DOI: 10.5061/dryad.sxksn02zs
title: Habitats of Pleistocene megaherbivores reconstructed from the frozen fauna remains

description: The Late Pleistocene landscape in northern Eurasia and North America was
 inhabited by a specific megafaunal complex, which largely disappeared
 during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. Vegetation changes are
 considered as one of the factors responsible for these extinctions, but
 the structure and composition of the Pleistocene vegetation are still
 poorly known. Here we complement previous studies by comparing the
 taxonomic composition of the plant remains found in the gastrointestinal
 tracts of the frozen carcasses of Pleistocene megaherbivores with the
 species composition of the current Siberian vegetation. We compiled a
 dataset of palaeobotanical records from frozen individuals of Pleistocene
 megaherbivores found in northern Siberia and Beringia and dated to the
 period from more than 50 kyr BP to 9 kyr BP. We also compiled a dataset of
 vegetation plots from several regions in Siberia. We analysed the
 similarity in taxonomic composition of plants between these two datasets
 using a novel method that accounts for variable taxonomic resolution in
 palaeobotanical data. For most megaherbivore individuals, plant remains in
 their gastrointestinal tracts corresponded to tundra, forest and mire
 vegetation, while they showed low similarity to steppe. This pattern was
 relatively constant over time, showing no remarkable differences between
 the Last Glacial Maximum and the periods before and afterwards. This
 suggests that during the Upper Pleistocene, a mosaic of mesic and wet
 vegetation types such as tundra with patches of forests and mires was
 common in northern Siberia and Beringia. In contrast, the steppe was rare
 to absent in the landscape or underused by the megaherbivores as a pasture
 since they found enough food in the widespread mesic and wet habitats with
 more productive vegetation.
description: Supporting data to the
 manuscript Axmanová et
 al.: <b>Habitats of Pleistocene megaherbivores reconstructed from
 the frozen fauna remains. </b>Ecography. DOI
 10.1111/ecog.04940 This database contains
 information on plant remains identified in frozen megafauna
 individuals. We compiled
 plant records reported from the Pleistocene and early Holocene frozen
 megaherbivores found in northern Siberia, Alaska and the Yukon Territory.
 The palaeobotanical data include pollen+spores, macrofossils and DNA
 analyses reported from gastrointestinal tracts of frozen fauna or
 coprolites (for more details see Table A2, the manuscript and Supporting
 information. Plant
 nomenclature follows Cherepanov (1995) for vascular plants and Ignatov
 & Afonina (1992) for bryophytes. All frozen
 animal samples are sorted according to their radiocarbon dating, with the
 same IDs as in the manuscript. Following Ukraintseva (2013) and Willerslev
 et al. (2014), we used the division of individual samples into periods of
 pre-LGM (50–25 kyr BP; called Kargin in northern Siberia or Wisconsinian
 Interstadial in North America), LGM (25–15 kyr BP; Sartan Ice Age/Late
 Wisconsinian) and post-LGM (15 kyr BP – present; Late glacial and early
 Holocene). The taxa of
 the palaeobotanical records were included in our analyses at three
 identification levels, as species, genus and family. Higher taxa than
 families were not considered. Following
 tables are included: <b>Palaebotanical-data-all</b>: this table includes all available palaeobotanical data published. If available, we included also proportional data (percentages) and pollen data from the surrounding sediment, although these were not included in our analyses. <b>Pollen</b>: Presence/absence data of pollen and spores identified in individual frozen animals. Data used in our analyses. <b>Macrofossils</b>: Presence/absence data of macrofossils reported from individual frozen animals. Data used in our analyses. <b>Pollen-Macrofossils-DNA</b>:  Presence/absence data based on combined evidence of pollen+spores, DNA and macrofossils. Data used in our analyses.   References Cherepanov, S. K. 1995. Vascular Plants of Russia and Adjacent Countries (within the Former USSR). – Mir i sem’ya-95, Sankt Petersburg (in Russian). Ignatov, M. S. and Afonina, O. M. 1992. Check-list of mosses of the former USSR. – Arctoa 1: 1–58. Ukraintseva, V. V. 2013. Mammoths and the Environment. – Cambridge University Press. Willerslev, E. et al. 2014. Fifty thousand years of Arctic vegetation and megafaunal diet. – Nature 506: 47–51.