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
Authors | 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. |
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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 Publication | 2010 |
Journal | Organic Geochemistry |
Journal citation | 41 (5), pp. 467-472 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orggeochem.2010.02.001 |
Open access | Published as non-open access |
Funder | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council |
Funder project or code | North Wyke Research (NWR) |
Soil and organic matter processes | |
Publisher's version | Copyright license Publisher copyright File Access Level Restricted |
Output status | Published |
Publication dates | |
Online | 04 Feb 2010 |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 01 Feb 2010 |
ISSN | 0146-6380 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Permalink - https://repository.rothamsted.ac.uk/item/8q7w1/archaeol-a-biomarker-for-foregut-fermentation-in-modern-and-ancient-herbivorous-mammals
Publisher's version