Soil and Plant Phytoliths from the Acacia-Commiphora Mosaics at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)

Mercader, Julio

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39

University of Calgary

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5637-7937

Clarke, Siobhan

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39

University of Calgary

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3489-6338

Bundala, Mariam

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39;https://ror.org/0479aed98

University of Calgary; University of Dar es Salaam

Favreau, Julien

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39

University of Calgary

Inwood, Jamie

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39

University of Calgary

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3980-5730

Itambu, Makarius

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39;https://ror.org/0479aed98

University of Calgary; University of Dar es Salaam

Larter, Fergus

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39

University of Calgary

Lee, Patrick

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39;https://ror.org/03dbr7087

University of Calgary; University of Toronto

Lewiski-McQuaid, Garnet

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39

University of Calgary

Mollel, Neduvoto

-;https://ror.org/01camwr54

National Herbarium of Tanzania; Tropical Pesticides Research Institute

Mwambwiga, Aloyce

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39;-

University of Calgary; Arusha National Natural History Museum

Patalano, Robert

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39

University of Calgary

Soto, María

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39

University of Calgary

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4154-5384

Tucker, Laura

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39

University of Calgary

Walde, Dale

https://ror.org/03yjb2x39;-

University of Calgary; ASM Research Group

2018-11-20T19:00:39Z

2018-11-20T19:00:39Z

2018-11-20

https://www.frdr-dfdr.ca/repo/dataset/13218605-56a2-995c-4888-e9f5cf340384

https://doi.org/10.20383/101.0122

This dataset pertains to the study of soil and plant phytoliths from the Eastern Serengeti Plains, specifically the Acacia-Commiphora mosaics from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The soil phytolith transect extends 100 ha and comprises 35 samples. Botanic collection was aimed at investigating the range of species present in the study area, learning about their phytolith production and morphotype characteristics, and comparing the botanical dataset with the soil group. We studied 29 species (20 genera, 15 families). Quantification aimed at discovering relationships amongst the soil and plant phytoliths relative distributions through Chi–square independence tests, establishing the statistical significance of the relationship between categorical variables within the two populations. For the soils we tallied 10,745 phytoliths (64 morphotypes grouped into 15 classes). Plants yielded 4,310 phytoliths (morphotypes = 52, classes = 13). In topsoils, the woody phytolith group dominates all terrain ranks, and appears to increase with denser plant cover, while grass phytoliths peak in sparsely vegetated terrain. The morphotypes from woody plants are led by the spherical class. The Poaceae produce ovates, towers, and horned towers. We provide a phytolith analog for the Acacia-Commiphora ecozone, explore whether soil phytoliths mirror the physiognomy and composition of vegetation aboveground, issues of catchment size, as well as time averaging, heterogeneity, and adequate sampling methods. From a phytolith perspective, this analog comprises seven phytolith classes: Four from woody tissue and three from grasses. In addition, we created a phytolith reference collection of characteristic plants from this ecosystem that can aid in the taxonomic identification of phytoliths from ancient sediments and soils.

Federated Research Data Repository / dépôt fédéré de données de recherche

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

African palaeoenvironments

Soil and Plant phytoliths

Acacia-Commiphora woodland and grassland mosaics

Reference collections

East Africa

Analog for early human evolution

Soil and Plant Phytoliths from the Acacia-Commiphora Mosaics at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)

f163c1b3-9c88-42f6-a7bb-5839ed6c4063

/1/published/publication_122/

AIP generation and transfer successful

2020-07-14 17:33:10

2018

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/3ed7f

https://doi.org/10.20383/101.0123

Olduvai Gorge;-;-;Tanzania

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

895-2016-1017

RDF5090104

Other social sciences

Anthropology

Social and cultural anthropology

Autres sciences sociales

Anthropologie

Anthropologie sociale et culturelle