Quantifying the living fossil concept

Bennett, Dominic J.; Sutton, Mark D.; Turvey, Samuel T.

doi:10.26879/750

Cited by 15 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…7 ). Huxley (1866) 8 has already noticed the low anatomical disparity of coelacanths throughout their history, and this observation has been confirmed by most subsequent studies 9,10,11,12,13,14,15 . This monotonic rate of evolution is interrupted by at least three episodes of increased morphological disparity, with forms presenting a different Bauplan, roughly contemporary with peaks of taxic diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Giant Mesozoic Coelacanths (Osteichthyes, Actinistia) Reveal High Body Size Disparity Decoupled From Taxic Diversity

Cavin

Piuz

Ferrante

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The positive correlation between speciation rates and morphological evolution expressed by body size is a macroevolutionary trait of vertebrates. Although taxic diversification and morphological evolution are slow in coelacanths, their fossil record indicates that large and small species coexisted, which calls into question the link between morphological and body size disparities. Here, we describe and reassess fossils of giant coelacanths. Two genera reached up to 5 meters long, placing them among the ten largest bony fish that ever lived. The disparity in body size adjusted to taxic diversity is much greater in coelacanths than in ray-finned fishes, and is decoupled from a high rate of speciation or a high rate of morphological evolution. Genomic and physiological characteristics of the extant Latimeria may reflect how the extinct relatives grew to such a large size. These characteristics highlight new evolutionary traits specific to these “living fossils”.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Giant Mesozoic Coelacanths (Osteichthyes, Actinistia) Reveal High Body Size Disparity Decoupled From Taxic Diversity

Cavin

Piuz

Ferrante

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…3). Hence, the outermost species seem to correspond to "living fossils," which are extant or extinct taxa characterized with properties including (I) primitive morphologies, (II) slow morphological evolution, (III) low diversification and extinction rates, and (IV) outstanding taxonomical distinctness (31,46,47). For convenience, we denote by "living-fossilization" the evolutionary process of getting relatively more primitive in fundamental traits due to slowing of their adaptive evolution, in comparison with the most advanced species in the focal species group.…”

Section: Living-fossilizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ever since Darwin (1859) (2), living fossils, characterized by their significantly primitive morphologies, slow morphological evolution, low diversification and extinction rates, and taxonomic distinctness (31,46,47), have attracted significant attention. As Darwin wrote, "Species and groups of species, which are called aberrant, and which may fancifully be called living fossils, will aid us in forming a picture of the ancient forms of life" (2), living fossils might provide information regarding organisms that lived in ancient eras.…”

Section: Living Fossilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The adaptation front equation explains diversification hotspots and living-fossilization

Ito

Sasaki

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Taxonomic turnovers are common in the evolutionary histories of biological communities. Such turnovers are often associated with the emergence and diversification of groups that have achieved fundamental innovations beneficial in various ecological niches. In the present study, we show that such innovation-driven turnovers could be analyzed using an equation that describes the dynamics of zero-fitness isoclines in a two-dimensional trait space comprising a "fundamental trait" (describing fundamental innovation) and a "niche trait" (describing niche position) or with its higher-dimensional extensions. Our equation allows analytical prediction of evolutionary source-sink dynamics along the niche axis for an arbitrary unimodal (or multimodal with weak separation) carrying capacity distribution. The prediction was confirmed by numerical simulation under different assumptions for resource competition, reproduction, and mutation. In the simulated evolution, biodiversity sources are the central niches having higher carrying capacities than the outer niches, allowing species there the faster evolutionary advancement in fundamental traits and their repeated diversification into outer niches, which outcompete the indigenous less advanced species. The outcompeted species go extinct or evolve directionally toward the far outer niches of the far slower advancement because of the far lower carrying capacities. In consequence of this globally acting process over niches, species occupying peripheral (i.e., the outermost) niches can have significantly primitive fundamental traits and deep divergence times from their closest relatives, and thus, they correspond to living fossils. The extension of this analysis for multiple geographic regions showed that living fossils are also expected in geographically peripheral regions for the focal species group.

show abstract

“…Evolutionary distinctness (ED; [1]) is a measure of the isolation of a species in a phylogenetic tree, expressed in millions of years. Many conservation biologists are interested in the conservation of species that are highly evolutionarily distinct as these species represent a disproportionately large amount of evolutionary history [1,2]; they may be likened to 'living fossils' [3]. Furthermore, ED has often been correlated (albeit contentiously; [4]) with trait distinctiveness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These curves were generated from birth-death tree-growth simulations where biases can be introduced based on tip ED. Scenarios are based on those described in [3]. For more details on how these simulations were created, see the electronic supplementary material, methods and results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How the past impacts the future: modelling the performance of evolutionarily distinct mammals through time

Bennett

Sutton

Turvey

2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How does past evolutionary performance impact future evolutionary performance? This is an important question not just for macroevolutionary biologists who wish to chart the phenomena that describe deep-time changes in biodiversity but also for conservation biologists, as evolutionarily distinct species—which may be deemed ‘low-performing’ in our current era—are increasingly the focus of conservation efforts. Contrasting hypotheses exist to account for the history and future of evolutionarily distinct species: on the one hand, they may be relicts of large radiations, potentially ‘doomed’ to extinction; or they may be slow-evolving, ‘living fossils’, likely neither to speciate nor go extinct; or they may be seeds of future radiations. Here, we attempt to test these hypotheses in Mammalia by combining a molecular phylogenetic supertree with fossil record occurrences and measuring change in evolutionary distinctness (ED) at different time slices. With these time slices, we modelled future ED as a function of past ED. We find that past evolutionary performance does indeed have an impact on future evolutionary performance: the most evolutionarily isolated clades tend to become more evolutionarily distinct with time, indicating that low-performing clades tend to remain low-performing throughout their evolutionary history. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The past is a foreign country: how much can the fossil record actually inform conservation?’

show abstract

Quantifying the living fossil concept

Cited by 15 publications

References 46 publications

Giant Mesozoic Coelacanths (Osteichthyes, Actinistia) Reveal High Body Size Disparity Decoupled From Taxic Diversity

Giant Mesozoic Coelacanths (Osteichthyes, Actinistia) Reveal High Body Size Disparity Decoupled From Taxic Diversity

The adaptation front equation explains diversification hotspots and living-fossilization

How the past impacts the future: modelling the performance of evolutionarily distinct mammals through time

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About