A peculiar faunivorous metatherian from the early Eocene of Australia

Beck, Robin M. D.

doi:10.4202/app.2013.0011

Cited by 8 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…To do this, we used the Paleobiology Database (PBDB: http://www.paleobiodb.org; accessed 20 September 2015), Encyclopedia of Life (EoL: http://www.eol.org; accessed 23 September 2015), and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF: http://www.gbif.org; accessed 26 September 2015) (Table ). Data were also obtained for newly described species and new records representing range extensions from the literature (Beck ; Ercoli et al . ; Prevosti et al .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extinction of South American sparassodontans (Metatheria): environmental fluctuations or complex ecological processes?

et al. 2016

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Sparassodontans are a diverse but now extinct group of metatherians that were apex predators in South America during most of the Cenozoic. Studying their decline has been controversial mainly due to the scarcity of the fossil record, and different methodological approaches have led to contradictory hypotheses. In an effort to explore questions about their extinction, we developed a novel multi‐model statistical approach to analyse all of the currently available data at a continental scale. Using multiple regression analysis and new advances in beta diversity analysis, we used all currently available fossil data at a continental scale to test four competing hypotheses to account for the decline of sparassodontans: competition with placental carnivorans, competition with avian phorusrhacids, non‐competitive ecological interactions, and environmental fluctuations. Our results show that the sparassodontan extinction was a gradual process with species disappearing throughout the Cenozoic. Multiple regression analysis supported non‐competitive ecological interactions as the best extinction model. Native South American ungulates, African migrants (caviomorph rodents and platyrrhine primates) and didelphimorphians were the groups with the highest statistical significance. Sparassodontan beta diversity increased between South American Land Mammal Ages after the Paleocene–Eocene boundary. Our results demonstrate that ecological modelling techniques illuminate aspects of extinction processes whilst mitigating the limitations of the fossil record. Our study suggests that non‐competitive ecological interactions could have been the main driver for sparassodontan extinction rather than, as commonly assumed, a result of competition and/or abiotic fluctuations.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extinction of South American sparassodontans (Metatheria): environmental fluctuations or complex ecological processes?

et al. 2016

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“…Metatherians first appear in the Antarctic and Australian fossil records in the early Eocene (e.g., Blake and Aronson 1998; Beck 2015). European metatherians occur in each of the four Eocene stages, yet only four genera are known: Amphiperatherium , Peratherium , Armintodelphys , and Peradectes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the Oligocene, Australia experienced “icehouse” conditions as a result of its severance from Antarctica and the oceanic circulation patterns that ensued (McGowran and Hill 2015, and references therein). Forests were less diverse than those of the early Eocene (Black et al 2012) and experienced greater seasonality and lower rainfall.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Miocene shows the last of the Laurasian metatherians until the northward dispersal of opossums into North America (represented by Didelphis virginiana today) from South America during the great American biotic interchange (GABI) in the Quaternary (see reviews in Bacon et al [2015], Montes et al [2015], and Woodburne [2010] for a discussion of the complex history of the GABI). The Miocene record for North American metatherians comprises only a single genus, Herpetotherium , recovered from six early Miocene fossil sites (e.g., Whistler and Lander 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The history of the Isthmus of Panama, and associated GABI, is now more complex than previously realized. It used to be thought that this region provided a land bridge for terrestrial dispersal between North and South America from around 5–3.5 Ma, whereas recent studies have proposed phases of biotic exchange at 20 and 6 Ma (Bacon et al 2015) and the emergence of a land connection approximately 15–13 Ma (Montes et al 2015). Nevertheless, the Pliocene is associated with the beginning of high-volume immigration from North America (GABI), potentially related to climatic cooling that resulted in savannas suitable for dispersal of mammalian herbivores (Molnar 2008; Hoorn and Flantua 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Deep time diversity of metatherian mammals: implications for evolutionary history and fossil-record quality

Bennett¹,

Upchurch²,

Goin

et al. 2018

Paleobiology

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Despite a global fossil record, Metatheria are now largely restricted to Australasia and South America. Most metatherian paleodiversity studies to date are limited to particular subclades, time intervals, and/or regions, and few consider uneven sampling. Here, we present a comprehensive new data set on metatherian fossil occurrences (Barremian to end Pliocene). These data are analyzed using standard rarefaction and shareholder quorum subsampling (including a new protocol for handling Lagerstätte-like localities).Global metatherian diversity was lowest during the Cretaceous, and increased sharply in the Paleocene, when the South American record begins. Global and South American diversity rose in the early Eocene then fell in the late Eocene, in contrast to the North American pattern. In the Oligocene, diversity declined in the Americas, but this was more than offset by Oligocene radiations in Australia. Diversity continued to decrease in Laurasia, with final representatives in North America (excluding the later entry ofDidelphis virginiana) and Europe in the early Miocene, and Asia in the middle Miocene. Global metatherian diversity appears to have peaked in the early Miocene, especially in Australia. Following a trough in the late Miocene, the Pliocene saw another increase in global diversity. By this time, metatherian biogeographic distribution had essentially contracted to that of today.Comparison of the raw and sampling-corrected diversity estimates, coupled with evaluation of “coverage” and number of prolific sites, demonstrates that the metatherian fossil record is spatially and temporally extremely patchy. Therefore, assessments of macroevolutionary patterns based on the raw fossil record (as in most previous studies) are inadvisable.

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Dispersal of Vertebrates from Between the Americas, Antarctica, and Australia in the Late Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic

Goin¹,

Woodburne

Zimicz

et al. 2015

Springer Earth System Sciences

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A peculiar faunivorous metatherian from the early Eocene of Australia

Abstract: I describe Archaeonothos henkgodthelpi gen. et. sp. nov.,

Cited by 8 publications

References 45 publications

Extinction of South American sparassodontans (Metatheria): environmental fluctuations or complex ecological processes?

Extinction of South American sparassodontans (Metatheria): environmental fluctuations or complex ecological processes?

Deep time diversity of metatherian mammals: implications for evolutionary history and fossil-record quality

Dispersal of Vertebrates from Between the Americas, Antarctica, and Australia in the Late Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic

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