Historic and Modern Bison Morphology and Diet Data from Bighorn Basin, Wyoming

124 bison specimens from the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA, were analyzed for cranial morphology and stable isotope composition. The dataset includes 114 historic and 10 modern, ranched bison, with up to 26 morphological measurements per specimen. It was created by Amy Phillips and last updated in March 2026 to study changes before and after the 19th-century population bottleneck.

Use Cases

• Assessing morphological changes in bison populations based on cranial measurements.
• Analyzing dietary ecology shifts using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data.
• Comparing historic free-ranging bison with modern ranched herds for conservation insights.
• Placing isolated bison crania within a chronological and evolutionary context using morphological data.

Strengths

• Includes 124 total specimens, providing a basis for comparative analysis.
• Contains up to 26 morphological measurements per specimen, suggesting detailed characterization.
• Explicitly compares 114 historic and 10 modern specimens, enabling temporal analysis.
• Stable isotope data (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) are included for dietary inference.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is small at 27.8 KB, indicating a limited scope.

Provenance

Source

Amy Phillips via figshare.

Collection Method

Morphological measurements and stable isotope analysis of bison specimens.

Time Range

Covers late Holocene to modern periods.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-18 07:40:40; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA.