Avifauna of the Bonneville Basin: Past Variation and Future Conservation

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Celebrating 20 Years of Support: Current Work by Recipients of the Dienje Kenyon Memorial Fellowship for Zooarchaeologists" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The final regression of Lake Bonneville during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition resulted in dramatic environmental changes in the Bonneville basin, followed by further environmental fluctuations throughout the Holocene. Recent research of faunal and floral remains throughout the basin has increased our knowledge of the corresponding biotic changes that occurred in the region. The dynamics of the region’s avifauna, however, remain poorly understood due to a limited availability of avifaunal assemblages that cover this period. Homestead Cave is the only site within the basin that has produced a substantial, fine-grained avifaunal record that spans the past 13,000 years. Identification of the changes in taxonomic composition of the Homestead Cave avifauna throughout this long record allows for study of the response of certain taxa to shifts in different environmental factors. This analysis has important implications for the modern conservation and management of birds, including that of the Greater Sage-Grouse, which represents one of the most prominent and controversial wildlife conservation issues in western North America today.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Celebrating 20 Years of Support: Current Work by Recipients of the Dienje Kenyon Memorial Fellowship for Zooarchaeologists

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32762