Use of cenograms in mammalian palaeoecology. A critical review

Cenograms are graphic representations of the size distribution of the mammalian species present in a community and are used in palaeoecological studies to obtain information about the environment. Three empirical rules are commonly applied in the interpretation of cenograms. This paper reviews the methodology of cenograms, special attention being paid to those rules. A database of 92 recent faunas and environmental data has been used to explore the relationships between the shape of the cenograms and the environment. A quantitative procedure has been developed to test the validity of the rules from a statistical point of view. The analyses carried out in this paper failed to confirm the alleged relationships between the size distribution of the large mammals and the aridity of the environment and between the size distribution of the small mammals and the temperature. The gap in medium-sized species is related to the vegetation structure, although only in tropical communities.