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Plant adaptations to environmental and climatic changes in Pangaean intramontane basins are poorly understood. Here, we document a previously unknown primitive gymnosperm species, Lesleya ceriacoi sp. nov., from the Douro Carboniferous Basin (DCB; lower Gzhelian, Upper Pennsylvanian; NW Portugal) of the Variscan Iberian Massif (Iberia). This new species is described from a 303 million-years-old fossil rediscovered at the U.Porto's Herbarium PO, stored at the Museu de História Natural e da Ciência da Universidade do Porto (MHNC-UP; Portugal). L. ceriacoi sp. nov. displays an exquisite leaf shape with morphological traits adapted to specific ecological conditions of the DCB. These leaf morphological traits comprise toothed and dissected margins, which represent specialised adaptations to drier (xerophytic) conditions of the DCB during the Gzhelian (ca. 304–299 Ma), at the end of the Late Pennsylvanian. The xeromorphic traits of the new species represent an evolutionary novelty for the Pennsylvanian Euramerican dry-climate adapted floras, and are evidence of evolutionary adaptation to environmental and climatic change in intramontane basins like DCB within central tropical Pangaea. Such an adaptation occurred during an interval of wet to dry climate transition after the end of one late Palaeozoic Gondwana Ice Age (glaciation) in Gzhelian time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Late Early Pleistocene vertebrate assemblages in the Mediterranean area have sparked the interest of the scientific community in the last two decades mainly thanks to the discovery of fossils and/or stone tools testifying to the presence of early Homo. However, our knowledge of most of these assemblages is biased by the lack of well-constrained chronological data, especially for those close to or related to the Jaramillo magnetostratigraphic subchron (ca. 1.0 Ma). As a matter of fact, the available European palaeontological assemblages chronologically close to the Jaramillo interval are overall scarce, especially for the period prior to the so-called '0.9 Ma event'. This long and cold glacial period was characterised by profound changes in ecosystems and important faunal turnover in Europe, including the replacement of most Villafranchian species by typical Galerian ones. Here, we report on the carnivoran remains from Collecurti (central Italy), that is, one of the few available Jaramillo-dated assemblages in Europe. The Collecurti sample includes the species Canis (Xenocyon) lycaonoides, Canis mosbachensis, and Ursus deningeri and is here described in detail for the first time and compared with those from similar-aged European sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Pleistocene and Holocene, large-scale climatic changes occurred, resulting in severe environmental changes. Such changes in the Carpathian Basin were examined using dental elements of cervids from localities of Slovakia and Hungary. Their dental wear and the stable carbon and oxygen isotope values of structural carbonate and phosphate in bio-apatite of enamel were measured. Dental wear reflects the long and short-term changes of past vegetation, and stable isotope analyses can be used to uncover palaeotemperature and photosynthetic pathways of the consumed plants, thus indirectly providing information on the vegetation. The changes of mesowear scores, from the early Pleistocene onwards, indicate a gradual transition from a more or less closed to an open environment, as climate got cooler. The results of microwear analysis suggest that even though the environment became more open, some tree cover remained in the Carpathian Basin, even in the glacial periods. Based on the measured δ18O values for glacial periods, estimated temperatures were approximately 5–6°C cooler, whereas for interglacials, temperatures were similar to the recent climate of Hungary. The δ13C values of the examined cervids suggest predominantly C3 plant consumption, which agrees with the fact that C4 plants are scarcer in colder environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seabirds are higher-order predators in the marine ecosystem and hence good indicators of the marine environment. Although the North Pacific has been the focal area for investigations of seabird faunal dynamics, the Pleistocene seabird fossil record has been scarce in the western North Pacific. Here, remains of 32 species of seabirds and related taxa (Anatidae, Podicipedidae, Gaviidae, Diomedeidae, Hydrobatidae, Procellariidae, Phalacrocoracidae, Scolopacidae, Laridae, and Alcidae) are reported from the middle–late Pleistocene Shiriya local fauna, northeastern Japan (Marine Isotope Stages 9 and 5e, ~ 320 and ~ 120 ka). This is the first substantial Pleistocene seabird fauna reported from the region so far, and includes globally first fossil records for Cepphus carbo and extant species of Aethia. The fauna also includes three extinct species, Shiriyanetta hasegawai, Mancalla? sp., and Uria onoi, the former two of which were flightless. The occurrence of immature individuals indicates that at least two species had nearby breeding sites. The seabird populations had probably been sustained by enhanced oceanic productivity in this area during their age, but oceanographic fluctuations in the subsequent glacial period, including the probable disappearance of a nearby oceanic front, would have seriously affected their subsistence, likely causing local extinctions of some species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]