Ungulate dietary traits and plasticity in zones of ecological transition inferred from late Pleistocene assemblages at Jou Puerta and Rexidora in the Cantabrian Region of northern Spain

The diet and habitats of Late Pleistocene ungulate taxa were analyzed in the caves of Jou Puerta and Rexidora (Marine Isotope Stage, MIS 3), in the Cantabrian Region of northern Spain, a zone of ecological transition between mainland Europe and Central-Southern Iberia. The two ungulate assemblages, which are composed mainly by cold-adapted species, were analyzed through tooth mesowear and microwear. The Jou Puerta community is dominated by the leaf browsers while at Rexidora the dominant taxa are grazers that suggest an open landscape with availability of grass, but also with significant presence of trees and/or forbs. Our results suggest an open landscape with presence of arboreal plant taxa during the coldest events of the MIS3. Concerning dietary plasticity, the diets for the cold-adapted woolly rhino and the reindeer in populations that lived in the southwestern boundary of their Eurasian distribution fit within the plasticity observed for other populations during the Pleistocene. It is proposed here that diet was not a limiting factor for the populations that inhabited the limit of their known range of distribution in the Cantabrian Region.