Additionally, we expected that the strength of these effects would vary depending on wild herbivore body size (
megaherbivores and medium-sized herbivores) and feeding habits (grazers, browsers, and mixed feeder).
Exploring behavior of an unusual
megaherbivore: a spatially explicit foraging model of the hippopotamus.
1988:
Megaherbivores. The influence of very large body size on ecology.-Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 369 pp.
Mallon's results indicate that these
megaherbivores (all weighing greater than 1,000 kg) had differing skull characteristics that would have allowed them to specialize in eating different types of vegetation.
However, damaging novel
megaherbivores, Horse and Sambar Deer, are seasonally present in the high country.
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst showed that the decline of
megaherbivores -- largest mammal species over 2,000 lbs in size -- in Africa over the last seven million years occurred independently of any milestone in human evolution to which it might be linked.
2008: Feeding ecology of two endangered sympatric
megaherbivores: Asian elephant Elephas maximus and greater one-horned rhinoceros Rhinoceros unicornis in lowland Nepal.
(1988)
Megaherbivores. The influence of very large body size on Ecology.
However, following the extinction of
megaherbivores in the late Pleistocene, Joshua tree seed dispersal now depends entirely on the more limited dispersal (< 100 m) of rodents in the Sciuridae, Heteromyidae and Cricetidae (Vander Wall et al.
Diet and habitat of toxodont
megaherbivores (Mammalia, Notoungulata) from the late Quaternary of South and Central America.
MacFadden BJ (2005) Diet and habitat of toxodont
megaherbivores (Mammalia, Notoungulata) from the late Quaternary of South and Central America.