Seven new rodent faunas are described from the Pčinja and Babušnica-Koritnica basins of south-east Serbia. The geology of the Tertiary deposits in the Pčinja and Koritnica-Babušnica basins of south-east Serbia is briefly reviewed. The fossil content of the new vertebrate localities is listed, and an inventory of the rodent associations is presented. The rodent associations are late Eocene-early Oligocene in age, interpreted on biostratigraphical grounds. These are the first rodent faunas of that age from the Balkan area, an important palaeogeographic location between Europe and Asia. The Muridae, with the subfamilies Pseudocricetodontinae, Paracricetodontinae, Pappocricetodontinae, Melissiodontinae and ?Spalacinae, are dominant with eight genera, four of which are new. The diversity of the Melissiodontinae and Paracricetodontinae in the faunas suggests that these subfamilies originated in this region. The bi-lophodont cheek teeth occurring in the Oligocene assemblages are identified as the first record of the Diatomyidae outside of Asia. In light of the large amount of new data, the palaeogeographic setting and faunal turnover of the Eocene-Oligocene is discussed.
Two new late Oligocene species of Deperetomys: D. calefactus and D. saltensis, are described and the affinities between the various species are discussed. The new records extend the stratigraphic range of Deperetomys into the Oligocene, making it the first European Miocene murid that can be traced across the "Cricetid vacuum". A single M1 of a large early Oligocene murid that may represent the oldest record of Deperetomys is described. The classification problems that arise as a result of the fast increase of information of the Paleogene Muridae from Asia and the Middle East are addressed and the need to recognise and define clades above the genus level is demonstrated. Our conclusion is that the Deperetomys clade contains at least three different evolutionary lineages.
Isolated teeth of Melissiodontinae from two Eocene and four Oligocene localities in southeastern Serbia are described. One new genus and two new species are named. The study of the derived morphology of the cheek teeth and of the contrastingly primordial microstructure of the tooth enamel of this diverse material provides a glimpse into the early history of the subfamily. The supposedly Asian murid ancestor of the Melissiodontinae seems to have reached the Serbian-Macedonian land area during the early or middle Eocene, which is shortly after the split up of the Muridae and Dipodidae and before the 'Grande Coupure' of central and Western Europe. We interpret the rapid consequent specialisation of the morphology of the chewing apparatus of the Melissiodontinae as an adaptation to feeding on small invertebrates on the floor of the Eocene forest.
A new diatomyid genus and species, Inopinatia balkanica, from the early Oligocene of south-east Serbia is described, and the affinities between the Diatomyidae and Ctenodactylidae are discussed. Inopinatia balkanica nov. gen. nov. sp. seems to have retained its deciduous teeth throughout life just as all other species of the family. The only other diatomyid described from outside south-east Asia which is Pierremus explorator López-Antoñanzas, 2010 is transferred to the thryonomyid species Paraphiomys knolli López-Antoñanzas and Sen, 2005.
AimThe common vole is a temperate rodent widespread across Europe. It was also one of the most abundant small mammal species throughout the Late Pleistocene. Phylogeographic studies of its extant populations suggested the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26.5-19 ka ago) as one of the main drivers of the species' population dynamics. However, analyses based solely on extant genetic diversity may not recover the full complexity of past population history. The main aim of this study was to investigate the evolutionary history and identify the main drivers of the common vole population dynamics during the Late Pleistocene.
Location
Europe
Taxon
Common vole (Microtus arvalis)
MethodsWe generated a dataset comprising 4.2 kb-long fragment of mitochondrial DNA from 148 ancient and 51 modern specimens sampled from multiple localities across Europe and covering the last 60 thousand years (ka). We used Bayesian inference to reconstruct their phylogenetic relationships and to estimate the age of specimens that were not directly dated.
ResultsWe estimate the time to the most recent common ancestor of all Last Glacial and extant common vole lineages to 90 ka ago and the divergence of the main mtDNA lineages present in extant populations to between 55 and 40 ka ago, earlier than previous estimates. We find multiple lineage turnovers in Europe in the period of high climate variability at the end of Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3; 57-29 ka ago) in addition to those found previously around the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. Conversely, data from the Western Carpathians suggest continuity throughout the LGM even at high latitudes.
Main conclusions.
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