Archaeol - a biomarker for foregut fermentation in modern and ancient herbivorous mammals?

A - Papers appearing in refereed journals

Gill, F. L., Dewhurst, R. J., Dungait, J. A. J., Evershed, R. P., Ives, L., Li, C-S., Pancost, R. D., Sullivan, M., Bera, S. and Bull, I. D. 2010. Archaeol - a biomarker for foregut fermentation in modern and ancient herbivorous mammals? Organic Geochemistry. 41 (5), pp. 467-472. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orggeochem.2010.02.001

AuthorsGill, F. L., Dewhurst, R. J., Dungait, J. A. J., Evershed, R. P., Ives, L., Li, C-S., Pancost, R. D., Sullivan, M., Bera, S. and Bull, I. D.
Abstract

A pilot study was conducted to investigate the hydroxylated lipid content of faeces from a range of herbivorous animals with either foregut or hindgut fermenting digestive systems. Assessment of the sterol distributions derived from the faeces revealed that, whilst there were differences in the relative concentrations of individual compounds between species, there was no overall characteristic that could be used to differentiate between foregut and hindgut fermenters. However, the concentration of archaeol in each of the modern faeces varied between 5 and 49 μg g−1dry wt for the foregut fermenters, whilst archaeol was not detected in faeces from hindgut fermenters. Based on these results, it is proposed that archaeol might be a useful proxy for methanogenesis in foregut fermenting digestive systems and, further, that the presence of archaeol may be used to infer a foregut digestive origin for coprolites from ancient herbivores. Consistent with this proposal, analysis of a sub-fossil ovi-caprid coprolite yielded detectable quantities of archaeol.

Year of Publication2010
JournalOrganic Geochemistry
Journal citation41 (5), pp. 467-472
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orggeochem.2010.02.001
Open accessPublished as non-open access
FunderBiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Funder project or codeNorth Wyke Research (NWR)
Soil and organic matter processes
Publisher's version
Copyright license
Publisher copyright
File Access Level
Restricted
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online04 Feb 2010
Publication process dates
Accepted01 Feb 2010
ISSN0146-6380
PublisherElsevier

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