Abstract. Scientists are increasingly turning to deep-time fossil records to decipher the long-term consequences of climate change in the race to preserve modern biotas from anthropogenically driven global warming. "Hyperthermals" are past intervals of geologically rapid global warming that provide the opportunity to study the effects of climate change on existing faunas over thousands of years. A series hyperthermals is known from the early Eocene (∼56–54 million years ago), including the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) and two subsequent hyperthermals, Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (ETM2) and H2. The later hyperthermals occurred following the onset of warming at the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO), the hottest sustained period of the Cenozoic. The PETM has been comprehensively studied in marine and terrestrial settings, but the terrestrial biotic effects of ETM2 and H2 are unknown. Their geochemical signatures have been located in the northern part of the Bighorn Basin, WY, USA, and their levels can be extrapolated to an extraordinarily dense, well-studied terrestrial mammal fossil record in the south-central part of the basin. High-resolution, multi-parameter paleoecological analysis reveals significant peaks in species diversity and turnover and changes in abundance and relative body size at the levels of ETM2 and H2 in the south-central Bighorn Basin record. In contrast with the PETM, faunal change at the later hyperthermals is less extreme, does not include immigration and involves a proliferation of body sizes, although abundance shifts tend to favor smaller congeners. Faunal response at ETM2 and H2 is distinctive in its high proportion of species losses potentially related to heightened species vulnerability in response to the changes already underway at the beginning of the EECO. Faunal response at ETM2 and H2 is also distinctive in high proportions of beta richness, suggestive of increased geographic dispersal related to transient increases in habitat (floral) complexity and/or precipitation or seasonality of precipitation. These results suggest that rapid ecological changes, increased heterogeneity in species incidence, and heightened species vulnerability and loss may be expected across most of North America in the near future in response to anthropogenically-driven climate change.
Mammal faunal response to the Paleogene hyperthermals ETM2 and H2
