Evolución de las faunas fósiles de aves del cuaternario de aragón y del norte de la península ibérica
- Autores: Carmen Núñez Lahuerta
- Directores de la Tesis: Gloria Cuenca Bescós (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universidad de Zaragoza ( España ) en 2019
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: José Ignacio Canudo Sanagustín (presid.), Isabel Cáceres (secret.), Marco Pavia (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Geología por la Universidad de Zaragoza
- Materias:
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- Resumen
Aves are vertebrates with adaptations for active flying. They are the most diverse tetrapod group nowadays, and they appear throughout every ecosystem. Fossil bird remains are common in the Quaternary sites; also, they play a key role in the origin of the sites, as they can be the main accumulators of small vertebrates. In this thesis the fossil bird remains of thirteen sites located in the north of the Iberian Peninsula are analyzed. Two of these sites belongs to the Early Pleistocene: Sima del Elefante and Gran Dolina; seven sites belong to the Upper Pleistocene: Aguilón P-7 (Ebro Valley), Los Batanes C-4 (Huesca Pyrenees), Llonin (Asturias), Abittaga, Axlor, Koskobilo and Atxuri I (Basque Country); and four sites belongs to the Holocene: Brecha del Rincón B-9, B-8, C15 and D-2 (Huesca Pyrenees). This thesis is a compendium of published works in international journals, it also includes works ready to be published. Chapter 1 is an introduction in which the background of the fossil bird studies made in the north of the Iberian Peninsula is discussed. The objectives and methodology of the thesis are also presented.
Chapters 2 and 3 face the fossil remains recovered in the Sima del Elefante, in Atapuerca (Early Pleistocene). Chapter 2 is an analysis of the avifauna of the site; it reveals the oldest record in the Iberian Peninsula of several species, the avian assemblage is similar to those identified in other same age European sites. Chapter 3 is the detailed analysis of the anatomy of the raven remains recovered in Sima del Elefante; the analysis allows the assignation of the remains to Corvus cf. pliocaenus. In Chapter 4 the first paleoologic analysis carried out in avian eggshells of Atapuerca, it is performed on eggshell fragments from the Early Pleistocene of the Gran Dolina, three avian taxa are identified. In Chapter 5 an analysis of the avian assemblages from Upper Pleistocene Western European sites based on the proportions of the number of remains of several bird taxa, considered good climatic indicators, is presented. The results point to a southwards migration of the Mediterranean and Eurosiberian climate areas limit and to the presence of forest patches during the Late Pleistocene. Chapters 6 to 9 present the analysis of the avian association of several Upper Pleistocene (Aguilón P-7 in Chapter 6, Llonin in Chapter 7, Abittaga, Axlor and Atxuri I in Chapter 8 and Los Batanes C-4 in Chapter 9) and Holocene (Brecha del Rincón B-9, B-8, C-15 and D-2 in Chapter 9) sites. The results reveal assemblages similar to those from other same age north Iberian sites, and the presence in the assemblages of species currently absent from the north of the Iberian Peninsula. In the Chapter 10 a general discussion of the thesis results is performed, and in Chapter 11 the main conclusions of the thesis are presented.
