Lifetime mobility of an Arctic woolly mammoth

Matthew J Wooller; Clement Bataille; Patrick Druckenmiller; Gregory M Erickson; Pamela Groves; Norma Haubenstock; Timothy Howe; Johanna Irrgeher; Daniel Mann; Katherine Moon; Ben A Potter; Thomas Prohaska; Jeffrey Rasic; Joshua Reuther; Beth Shapiro; Karen J Spaleta; Amy D Willis

doi:10.1126/science.abg1134

Lifetime mobility of an Arctic woolly mammoth

Science. 2021 Aug 13;373(6556):806-808. doi: 10.1126/science.abg1134.

Authors

Matthew J Wooller^#^{1

2}, Clement Bataille^#^{3

4}, Patrick Druckenmiller^{5

6}, Gregory M Erickson⁷, Pamela Groves⁸, Norma Haubenstock⁹, Timothy Howe⁹, Johanna Irrgeher¹⁰, Daniel Mann⁸, Katherine Moon^{11

12}, Ben A Potter¹³, Thomas Prohaska¹⁰, Jeffrey Rasic¹⁴, Joshua Reuther⁵, Beth Shapiro^{11

12}, Karen J Spaleta⁹, Amy D Willis¹⁵

Affiliations

¹ Alaska Stable Isotope Facility, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA. mjwooller@alaska.edu cbataill@uottawa.ca.
² Department of Marine Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA.
³ Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada. mjwooller@alaska.edu cbataill@uottawa.ca.
⁴ Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
⁵ University of Alaska Museum of the North, Fairbanks, AK, USA.
⁶ Department of Geosciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA.
⁷ Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
⁸ Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA.
⁹ Alaska Stable Isotope Facility, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA.
¹⁰ Department of General, Analytical and Physical Chemistry, Montanuniversität Leoben, Leoben, Austria.
¹¹ Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
¹² Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
¹³ Arctic Studies Center, Liaocheng University, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province, China.
¹⁴ National Park Service, Fairbanks, AK, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 34385399
DOI: 10.1126/science.abg1134

Abstract

Little is known about woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) mobility and range. Here we use high temporal resolution sequential analyses of strontium isotope ratios along an entire 1.7-meter-long tusk to reconstruct the movements of an Arctic woolly mammoth that lived 17,100 years ago, during the last ice age. We use an isotope-guided random walk approach to compare the tusk's strontium and oxygen isotope profiles to isotopic maps. Our modeling reveals patterns of movement across a geographically extensive range during the animal's ~28-year life span that varied with life stages. Maintenance of this level of mobility by megafaunal species such as mammoth would have been increasingly difficult as the ice age ended and the environment changed at high latitudes.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't