The extinction of dinosaurs at the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary was the seminal event that opened the door for the subsequent diversification of terrestrial mammals. Our compilation of maximum body size at the ordinal level by sub-epoch shows a near-exponential increase after the K/Pg. On each continent, the maximum size of mammals leveled off after 40 million years ago and thereafter remained approximately constant. There was remarkable congruence in the rate, trajectory, and upper limit across continents, orders, and trophic guilds, despite differences in geological and climatic history, turnover of lineages, and ecological variation. Our analysis suggests that although the primary driver for the evolution of giant mammals was diversification to fill ecological niches, environmental temperature and land area may have ultimately constrained the maximum size achieved.

Do large mammals evolve faster than small mammals or vice versa?Because the answer to this question contributes to our understanding of how life-history affects long-term and large-scale evolutionary patterns, and how microevolutionary rates scale-up to macroevolutionary rates, it has received much attention. A satisfactory or consistent answer to this question is lacking, however. Here, we take a fresh look at this problem using a large fossil dataset of mammals from the Neogene of the Old World (NOW). Controlling for sampling biases, calculating per capita origination and extinction rates of boundary-crossers and estimating survival probabilities using capture-mark-recapture (CMR) methods, we found the recurring pattern that large mammal genera and species have higher origination and extinction rates, and therefore shorter durations. This pattern is surprising in the light of molecular studies, which show that smaller animals, with their shorter generation times and higher metabolic rates, have greater absolute rates of evolution. However, higher molecular rates do not necessarily translate to higher taxon rates because both the biotic and physical environments interact with phenotypic variation, in part fueled by mutations, to affect origination and extinction rates. To explain the observed pattern, we propose that the ability to evolve and maintain behavior such as hibernation, torpor and burrowing, collectively termed ''sleep-orhide'' (SLOH) behavior, serves as a means of environmental buffering during expected and unexpected environmental change. SLOH behavior is more common in some small mammals, and, as a result, SLOH small mammals contribute to higher average survivorship and lower origination probabilities among small mammals.body size ͉ environmental buffering ͉ metabolism ͉ Neogene mammals ͉ turnover E volution operates at different scales of time and levels of the biological hierarchy (1). Body size covaries with many individual and species level traits (2), each of which could influence the tempo of evolution at population, species and clade levels. Multiple studies have shown that smaller sized mammals have higher molecular rates of evolution in absolute time, possibly because of a generation time effect and/or metabolic rate effect (3-8). Higher molecular rates may translate to higher rates of phenotypic changes (9 but see 10, 11) and a greater chance of reproductive isolation, which could ultimately lead to higher speciation rates (12) and higher rates of pseudoextinction, which could be observed as higher extinction rates among fossil taxa. As such, small mammals could be expected to have higher origination and extinction rates as observed in the fossil record. However, empirical studies on historical extinctions show that large mammals are at higher risk of extinction and have been selectively removed (13-17), as is also indicated by the Pleistocene megafauna extinction literature (18,19), even though body size per se may not always be a good predictor of extinction risk (20)(21)(22). Neither ...

How fast can a mammal evolve from the size of a mouse to the size of an elephant? Achieving such a large transformation calls for major biological reorganization. Thus, the speed at which this occurs has important implications for extensive faunal changes, including adaptive radiations and recovery from mass extinctions. To quantify the pace of large-scale evolution we developed a metric, clade maximum rate, which represents the maximum evolutionary rate of a trait within a clade. We applied this metric to body mass evolution in mammals over the last 70 million years, during which multiple large evolutionary transitions occurred in oceans and on continents and islands. Our computations suggest that it took a minimum of 1.6, 5.1, and 10 million generations for terrestrial mammal mass to increase 100-, and 1,000-, and 5,000-fold, respectively. Values for whales were down to half the length (i.e., 1.1, 3, and 5 million generations), perhaps due to the reduced mechanical constraints of living in an aquatic environment. When differences in generation time are considered, we find an exponential increase in maximum mammal body mass during the 35 million years following the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event.Our results also indicate a basic asymmetry in macroevolution: very large decreases (such as extreme insular dwarfism) can happen at more than 10 times the rate of increases. Our findings allow more rigorous comparisons of microevolutionary and macroevolutionary patterns and processes.haldanes | biological time | scaling | pedomorphosis M icroevolution and macroevolution characterize two extremes of the evolutionary process, representing evolution below and above the species level, respectively (1, 2). Microevolution often exhibits very fast rates over short timescales (<100 generations). At a typical generation-to-generation rate, evolution by a random walk could hypothetically produce a body mass change from that of a 20-g mouse to that of a 2,000,000-g elephant in fewer than 200,000 generations (3), a relatively brief geological interval. However, such high rates are not sustained over long intervals in the fossil record. Presumably this is because diverse physical, functional, genetic, developmental, and ecological constraints restrict large-scale macroevolution. Because these constraints may operate differently depending on whether an organism is becoming larger or smaller, it is equally important to understand whether the reverse transformation, from elephant to mouse, would be easier. Our question is how quickly such intertwined constraints can be overcome when there is a selective advantage to do so: What is the maximum rate of macroevolution? To paraphrase G. Evelyn Hutchinson "How big was it and how fast did it happen?" (4).Body mass is the most fundamental animal trait, strongly correlated with most aspects of morphology, life history, physiology, and behavior (5-7). Evolution of body mass influences and is influenced by selection on other traits and is easily characterized. Thus, changes in bod...

An ever larger proportion of Earth's biota is affected by the current accelerating environmental change. The mismatches between organisms and their environments are now increasing in both magnitude and frequency, resulting in lowered fitness and hence the decline of populations. Under this scenario, species with behavioral and/or physiological traits that provide them shelter from the environment are predicted to be less vulnerable to population declines than species that are always exposed to the elements. Here, we coded 4,536 living mammal species for sleep-or-hide (SLOH) behavior, including hibernation, torpor, and the use of burrows, among other related traits. We demonstrate that species that exhibit SLOH behavior are underrepresented in high-risk International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List categories. We found that SLOH behavior contributes to lowering extinction risk even after we accounted for other factors that directly or indirectly buffer species against extinction, such as larger geographic ranges and smaller body sizes. This result is robust to analyses using phylogenetically independent contrasts. Sleep-or-hide behavior, made possible by a related suite of physiological adaptations, allows mammals to function at lower metabolic rates and/or buffer them from changing physical elements. Mammals with SLOH behavior have a greater propensity to survive in the current extinction crisis and probably also in past crises because of reduced exposure to environmental stress.