Evolutionary and ecological response of pocket gophers ( Thomomys talpoides ) to late‐Holocene climatic change

Late‐Holocene evolutionary and ecological response of pocket gophers ( Thomomys talpoides ) and other species to climatic change is documented by mammalian fossils from Lamar Cave, a palaeontological site in northern Yellowstone National Park. Pocket gophers illustrate ecological sensitivity to a series of mesic to xeric climatic excursions in the sagebrush‐grassland ecotone during the last 3200 years, increasing in abundance during mesic intervals, and declining in abundance during xeric intervals. Four other small mammal taxa (Microtus sp., Peromyscus maniculatus, Neotoma cinerea and Spermophilus armatus) also show response to climatic change, increasing or decreasing in abundance in accordance with their preferred habitat requirements. To determine evolutionary response to climate, two craniodental characters for the northern pocket gopher ( Thomomys talpoides ) are investigated in modern representatives within a 400 km radius of Lamar Cave and then tracked through the time spanned by the fossils. One morphologic character shows that variation in body size, primarily a plastic response to the environment, demonstrates few taxonomically consistent patterns of geographic variation across 39 modern localities. In contrast, the other character indicates genetic relatedness within subspecies. Stasis in the genetically controlled character indicates that the same subspecies of pocket gopher ( T. talpoides tenellus ) has occupied northern Yellowstone for at least 3200 years. However, T. t. tenellus does show plastic response to climatic change because pocket gophers during the Medieval Warm Period were smaller than at any other time spanned by the deposit.