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Comparative spatial paleoecology: assessing niche competition between Eocene North American multituberculates and rodents regarding forest resources to elucidate the cause of multituberculate extinction
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DOI：10.1017/pab.2025.10048.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Multituberculate extinction is often cited as a classic case of competitive exclusion; coinciding with the first rodent arrivals in the late Paleocene. Analyzing 124 North American multituberculate last occurrence records during the Eocene from 56 to 34 million years ago; this study aimed to differentiate Eocene multituberculate and coeval rodent floral associations through geographic spatial analysis to understand niche overlap between the two groups. If competitive exclusion with rodents was a factor in multituberculate extinction; both multituberculates and rodents would be predicted to share similar forest habitat preferences and have competed for similar ecological niches regarding their forest associations. Using spatial analysis; this study found that Eocene rodents and multituberculates did not overlap in their forest associations. The findings indicate that multituberculates were unique in inhabiting a specific type of ancient forest habitat; favoring forests composed of Metasequoia; Glyptostrobus; and Alnus; and thus thrived in wetter northern temperate forest communities during the Eocene. Metasequoia and Glyptostrobus declined significantly in North America during the later Cenozoic; coinciding with multituberculate decline and extinction as the global climate shifted toward colder and drier climates around the Eocene/Oligocene boundary. In contrast; the success of rodents is attributed to their much broader forest affinity. These preferences align with the widespread distribution of rodents today; contributing to their modern success. The absence of any similar reconstructed forest habitat preferences between rodents and multituberculates suggests that changing forest structure; rather than competitive exclusion; drove multituberculate extinction.
Keywords:
multituberculate extinction
rodent competition
forest habitat preference
Eocene ecology
niche overlap
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