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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Ecol. Evol.

Sec. Paleoecology

This article is part of the Research TopicThe North American Bison Management System: Sustainability, One Health, Ecological Restoration, and Ecological ResilienceView all 14 articles

Diet and Morphological Variation in Bison (Bison bison) from the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA

Provisionally accepted
Amy PhillipsAmy Phillips1*Chris WidgaChris Widga2Jeff M. MartinJeff M. Martin3Igor V. OvchinnikovIgor V. Ovchinnikov4Jason BaldesJason Baldes5Kenneth P. CannonKenneth P. Cannon6Lawrence C. ToddLawrence C. Todd7
  • 1Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, United States
  • 2Pennsylvania State, Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
  • 3South Dakota State University Center of Excellence for Bison Studies, Rapid City, South Dakota, United States
  • 4University of North Dakota, Department of Biology, Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States
  • 5Wind River Bison Initiative, Kinnear, Wyoming, United States
  • 6Cannon Heritage Consultants Inc., Logan, UT, United States
  • 7Greybull River Sustainable Landscape Ecology Inc., Meeteetse, Wyoming, United States

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Cranial morphology has been used to examine ecological pressures on bison (Bison bison) populations and to place isolated crania within chronological and evolutionary contexts. This study analyzes 114 historic and 10 modern, ranched bison from the Bighorn Basin (Wyoming, USA) to assess morphological, dietary, and ecological changes before and after the 19th-century population bottleneck. Late Holocene bison from the region are morphologically consistent with contemporaneous populations elsewhere in North America. In contrast, modern ranched bison exhibit more curved horn cores, potentially reflecting management-related changes in herd dynamics. Stable isotope analyses (δ13C and δ¹⁵N) indicate that late Holocene Bighorn Basin bison consumed diets comparable to those of modern herds, both free-ranging, such as Yellowstone National Park, and ranched.

Keywords: Bison, Conservation paleobiology, Cranial morphometrics, Diet, Stable isotopes

Received: 02 Dec 2025; Accepted: 05 Feb 2026.

Copyright: © 2026 Phillips, Widga, Martin, Ovchinnikov, Baldes, Cannon and Todd. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Amy Phillips

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material