Turbinal bones are key components of the mammalian rostrum that contribute to three critical functions: (1) homeothermy, (2) water conservation and (3) olfaction. With over 700 extant species, murine rodents (Murinae) are the most species-rich mammalian subfamily, with most of that diversity residing in the Indo-Australian Archipelago. Their evolutionary history includes several cases of putative, but untested ecomorphological convergence, especially with traits related to diet. Among the most spectacular rodent ecomorphs are the vermivores which independently evolved in several island systems. We used 3D CT-scans (N = 87) of murine turbinal bones to quantify olfactory capacities as well as heat or water conservation adaptations. We obtained similar results from an existing 2D complexity method and two new 3D methodologies that quantify bone complexity. Using comparative phylogenetic methods, we identified a significant convergent signal in the rostral morphology within the highly specialised vermivores. Vermivorous species have significantly larger and more complex olfactory turbinals than do carnivores and omnivores. Increased olfactory capacities may be a major adaptive feature facilitating rats’ capacity to prey on elusive earthworms. The narrow snout that characterises vermivores exhibits significantly reduced respiratory turbinals, which may reduce their heat and water conservation capacities.

The Pig-footed Bandicoot, Chaeropus ecaudatus, an extinct arid-adapted bandicoot, was named in 1838 based on a specimen without a tail from the Murray River in New South Wales. Two additional species were later named, C. castanotis and C. occidentalis, which have since been synonymised with C. ecaudatus. Taxonomic research on the genus is rather difficult because of the limited material available for study. Aside from the types of C. castanotis and C. occidentalis housed at the Natural History Museum in London, and the type of C. ecaudatus at the Australian Museum in Sydney, there are fewer than 30 other modern specimens in other collections scattered around the world. Examining skeletal and dental characters for several specimens, and using a combination of traditional morphology, morphometrics, palaeontology and molecular phylogenetics, we have identified two distinct species, C. ecaudatus and C. yirratji sp. nov., with C. ecaudatus having two distinct subspecies, C. e. ecaudatus and C. e. occidentalis. We use palaeontological data to reconstruct the pre-European distribution of the two species, and review the ecological information known about these extinct taxa.

Natural history specimens are widely used across ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation. Although biological sex may influence all of these areas, it is often overlooked in large-scale studies using museum specimens. If collections are biased towards one sex, studies may not be representative of the species. Here, we investigate sex ratios in over two million bird and mammal specimen records from five large international museums. We found a slight bias towards males in birds (40% females) and mammals (48% females), but this varied among orders. The proportion of female specimens has not significantly changed in 130 years, but has decreased in species with showy male traits like colourful plumage and horns. Body size had little effect. Male bias was strongest in name-bearing types; only 27% of bird and 39% of mammal types were female. These results imply that previous studies may be impacted by undetected male bias, and vigilance is required when using specimen data, collecting new specimens and designating types.

Australia has the highest historically recorded rate of mammalian extinction in the world, with 34 terrestrial species declared extinct since European colonization in 1788. Among Australian mammals, rodents have been the most severely affected by these recent extinctions; however, given a sparse historical record, the scale and timing of their decline remain unresolved. Using museum specimens up to 184 y old, we generate genomic-scale data from across the entire assemblage of Australian hydromyine rodents (i.e., eight extinct species and their 42 living relatives). We reconstruct a phylogenomic tree for these species spanning ∼5.2 million years, revealing a cumulative total of 10 million years (>10%) of unique evolutionary history lost to extinction within the past ∼150 y. We find no evidence for reduced genetic diversity in extinct species just prior to or during decline, indicating that their extinction was extremely rapid. This suggests that populations of extinct Australian rodents were large prior to European colonization, and that genetic diversity does not necessarily protect species from catastrophic extinction. In addition, comparative analyses suggest that body size and biome interact to predict extinction and decline, with larger species more likely to go extinct. Finally, we taxonomically resurrect a species from extinction, Gould’s mouse (Pseudomys gouldii Waterhouse, 1839), which survives as an island population in Shark Bay, Western Australia (currently classified as Pseudomys fieldi Waite, 1896). With unprecedented sampling across a radiation of extinct and living species, we unlock a previously inaccessible historical perspective on extinction in Australia. Our results highlight the capacity of collections-based research to inform conservation and management of persisting species.

Differences in jaw function experienced through ontogeny can have striking consequences for evolutionary outcomes, as has been suggested for the major clades of mammals. By contrast to placentals, marsupial newborns have an accelerated development of the head and forelimbs, allowing them to crawl to the mother's teats to suckle within just a few weeks of conception. The different functional requirements that marsupial newborns experience in early postnatal development have been hypothesized to have constrained their morphological diversification relative to placentals. Here, we test whether marsupials have a lower ecomorphological diversity and rate of evolution in comparison with placentals, focusing specifically on their jaws. To do so, a geometric morphometric approach was used to characterize jaw shape for 151 living and extinct species of mammals spanning a wide phylogenetic, developmental and functional diversity. Our results demonstrate that jaw shape is significantly influenced by both reproductive mode and diet, with substantial ecomorphological convergence between metatherians and eutherians. However, metatherians have markedly lower disparity and rate of mandible shape evolution than observed for eutherians. Thus, despite their ecomorphological diversity and numerous convergences with eutherians, the evolution of the jaw in metatherians appears to be strongly constrained by their specialized reproductive biology.

Objectives: Incomplete and/or biased sampling either on a taxonomic or geographic level can lead to delusive phylogenetic and phylogeographic inferences. However, a complete taxonomic and geographical sampling is often and for various reasons impossible, particularly for widespread taxa such as baboons (Papio spp.). Previous studies on baboon phylogeography identified several sampling gaps, some of which we fill by investigating additional material including samples from museum specimens. Materials and methods: We generated 10 new mitochondrial genomes either via conventional PCR and subsequent Sanger sequencing from two blood samples or via high-throughput shotgun sequencing from degraded DNA extracted from eight museum specimens. Phylogenetic relationships and divergence times among baboon lineages were determined using maximum-likelihood and Bayesian inferences. Results: We identified new mitochondrial lineages in baboons from Central Africa (Chad, the Central African Republic), from the Mahale, and the Udzungwa Mountains (Tanzania), with the latter likely representing a case of mitochondrial capture from sympatric kipunjis (Rungwecebus kipunji). We also found that the mitochondrial clades of olive baboons found in Ivory Coast and Tanzania extend into Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, respectively. Moreover, an olive baboon from Sierra Leone carries a mitochondrial haplotype usually found in Guinea baboons, suggesting gene flow between these two species. Discussion: The extension of the geographic sampling by including samples from areas difficult to visit or from populations that are most likely extirpated has improved the geographic and temporal resolution of the mitochondrial phylogeny of baboons considerably. Our study also shows the great value of museum material for genetic analyses even when DNA is highly degraded.

Evolutionary ecomorphology of the Falkland Islands wolf Dusicyon australishttp://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/5265/ Article LJMU has developed LJMU Research Online for users to access the research output of the University more effectively. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LJMU Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain.The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of the record. Please see the repository URL above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. Pleistocene until 3000 years ago), which bore a close similarity to the = foxes but possibly had a more carnivorous feeding morphology (Prevosti et al. 2011).Previous morphological comparisons provided a puzzling evolution for the ')A phylomorphospace of skull shape (Fig. 1a) showed the morphology of the bat eared fox @ ! to be substantially divergent from that of other species due to its relatively short rostrum and wide mandibular ramus (positive scores for (Fig. 1b). The cluster had a high cophenetic correlation value (r = 0.887) and the position ofspp. remained relatively unchanged when UPGMA trees were repeated for cranial and mandibular shape datasets (Appendices S6 and S7). Other emerging clusters included the hypercarnivore group , , and and the hypocarnivores + , and + . The distance based metrics supported convergence between -and jackals in all datasets except the cranium, however convergence was low compared to that obtained for hyper and hypocarnivorous (Table 1).Phylogenetic evolutionary rates of skull shape data differed significantly among canid clades (σ ratio=2.421, P=0.025); the group " , , -" showed the fastest rate (σ = 1.52E 05), followed by " , =" (σ = 9.68E 06), then Old World Canini (σ = 9.59E 06) and the Vulpini tribe (σ = 6.26E 06, Appendix S8). This pattern emerged also in the cranial dataset, while for the mandible the sigma ratio was not significantly different from random expectation (Appendices S8 and S9).

No abstract