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Oxygen isotope fractionation between bird eggshell calcite and body water: application to fossil eggs from Lanzarote (Canary Islands)

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Abstract

Oxygen and carbon isotope compositions of fossil bird eggshell calcite (δ18Ocalc and δ13Ccalc) are regularly used to reconstruct paleoenvironmental conditions. However, the interpretation of δ18Ocalc values of fossil eggshells has been limited to qualitative variations in local climatic conditions as oxygen isotope fractionations between calcite, body fluids, and drinking water have not been determined yet. For this purpose, eggshell, albumen water, and drinking water of extant birds have been analyzed for their oxygen and carbon isotope compositions. Relative enrichments in 18O relative to 16O between body fluids and drinking water of +1.6 ± 0.9 ‰ for semi-aquatic birds and of +4.4 ± 1.9 ‰ for terrestrial birds are observed. Surprisingly, no significant dependence to body temperature on the oxygen isotope fractionation between eggshell calcite and body fluids is observed, suggesting that bird eggshells precipitate out of equilibrium. Two empirical equations relating the δ18Ocalc value of eggshell calcite to the δ18Ow value of ingested water have been established for terrestrial and semi-aquatic birds. These equations have been applied to fossil eggshells from Lanzarote in order to infer the ecologies of the Pleistocene marine bird Puffinus sp. and of the enigmatic giant birds from the Pliocene. Both δ13Ccalc and δ18Ocalc values of Puffinus eggshells point to a semi-aquatic marine bird ingesting mostly seawater, whereas low δ13Ccalc and high δ18Ocalc values of eggshells from the Pliocene giant bird suggest a terrestrial lifestyle. This set of equations can help to quantitatively estimate the origin of waters ingested by extinct birds as well as to infer either local environmental or climatic conditions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank G. Douay (PARC DE LA Tête d’Or, Lyon, France), S. Sweetman (University of Porthmouth), F. Lafuma, M. Arnould, J. Claude (ISEM), F. Thibon, L. Lambs (ECOLAB), and all the anonymous individual farmers for assistance in egg and water collection or analysis, as well as T. Tütken (Universität Mainz) and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that greatly helped to improve the manuscript. This study was supported by the Institut Universitaire de France (C.L.). The work by A. Sánchez Marco was supported by the grants CGL2011-28681, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and 2014 SGR 416 and 437 K117, Generalitat de Catalunya, and the CNRS INSU program INTERRVIE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR 5276, Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon, Terre, Planètes et Environnement, Université Claude Bernard, Lyon 1/CNRS/École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 69622, Villeurbanne Cedex, France

    Nicolas Lazzerini, Christophe Lécuyer, Romain Amiot & François Fourel

  2. Institut Universitaire de France, 103 Boulevard, Saint-Michel, 75005, Paris, France

    Christophe Lécuyer

  3. Paleaobiology Research Group, Biological Sciences Department, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rhodes Gift, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa

    Delphine Angst

  4. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR 8538, Laboratoire de Géologie de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, 75231, Paris cedex 05, France

    Eric Buffetaut

  5. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement/IPSL, UMR CEA/CNRS 1572, L’Orme des Merisiers, Bât. 701, CEA Saclay, 91191, Gif/Yvette Cedex, France

    Valérie Daux

  6. Departamento de Biología, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), 35017, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain

    Juan Francisco Betancort

  7. CNRS, UMR5558, Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, University Lyon, Université Lyon 1, 43 bd du 11 novembre 1918, F-69622, Villeurbanne, France

    Jean-Pierre Flandrois

  8. Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Barcelona, Spain

    Antonio Sánchez Marco

  9. Instituto de Oceanografía y Cambio Global, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain

    Alejandro Lomoschitz

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  1. Nicolas Lazzerini
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Correspondence to Romain Amiot.

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Communicated by: Robert R. Reisz

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Lazzerini, N., Lécuyer, C., Amiot, R. et al. Oxygen isotope fractionation between bird eggshell calcite and body water: application to fossil eggs from Lanzarote (Canary Islands). Sci Nat 103, 81 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-016-1404-x

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