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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

Determining birth season using oxygen isotopes in enamel. A new reference set for autumn births in sheep

Résumé

The season of births in domestic herds determines the availability of animal production, the organization of agropastoral tasks and herds mobility on the annual scale. It can be manipulated by the herder to a certain extent and it may have been so early in the history of domestication. Birth season can be investigated through the reconstruction of the seasonal cycle record in teeth, using sequential analysis of stable oxygen isotope ratios in enamel. The season of birth is then determined by comparison with modern references, i.e. oxygen isotope sequences measured in the teeth from animals of known birth season. Such works have been conducted in particular in sheep. For those, previous modern references have mostly included winter and early spring births, the season when most births occur under temperate latitudes in Europe. In order to complete the existing framework, we have built a new reference set focusing on autumn births, occurring currently in the western Mediterranean area. This new set is composed of 27 teeth (including second and third molars) from Lacaune and Merinos ewes raised in southern France. We will explain how the set was constituted, present the data for autumn births, connect it to previous data for winter and early spring births on different sheep breeds,and discuss intra- and inter-breeds variability.
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Dates et versions

hal-03447069 , version 1 (24-11-2021)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03447069 , version 1

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Marie Balasse, Matthieu Keller, Philippe Chemineau, Sara Parisot, Denis Fiorillo. Determining birth season using oxygen isotopes in enamel. A new reference set for autumn births in sheep. EAA 2021 Widening horizons, Sep 2021, Kiel (Visioconférence), Germany. ⟨hal-03447069⟩
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