Widespread loss of mammalian lineage and dietary diversity in the early Oligocene of Afro-Arabia

Vries, Dorien de; Borths, Matthew R.; Sallam, Hesham; Seiffert, Erik R.

doi:10.1038/s42003-021-02707-9

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…We note that the two diversity troughs detected for African and European sirenian lineages ( Fig. 6 )—near the EOB and during the early Oligocene—are similar to the pattern presented by de Vries et al (2021) for African terrestrial mammals.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Total evidence time-scaled phylogenetic and biogeographic models for the evolution of sea cows (Sirenia, Afrotheria)

Heritage

Seiffert

2022

PeerJ

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Molecular phylogenetic studies that have included sirenians from the genera Trichechus, Dugong, and Hydrodamalis have resolved their interrelationships but have yielded divergence age estimates that are problematically discordant. The ages of these lineage splits have profound implications for how to interpret the sirenian fossil record—including clade membership, biogeographic patterns, and correlations with Earth history events. In an effort to address these issues, here we present a total evidence phylogenetic analysis of Sirenia that includes living and fossil species and applies Bayesian tip-dating methods to estimate their interrelationships and divergence times. In addition to extant sirenians, our dataset includes 56 fossil species from 106 dated localities and numerous afrotherian outgroup taxa. Genetic, morphological, temporal, and biogeographic data are assessed simultaneously to bring all available evidence to bear on sirenian phylogeny. The resulting time-tree is then used for Bayesian geocoordinates reconstruction analysis, which models ancestral geographic areas at splits throughout the phylogeny, thereby allowing us to infer the direction and timing of dispersals. Our results suggest that Pan-Sirenia arose in North Africa during the latest Paleocene and that the Eocene evolution of stem sirenians was primarily situated in the Tethyan realm. In the late Eocene, some lineages moved into more northern European latitudes, an area that became the source region for a key trans-Atlantic dispersal towards the Caribbean and northern-adjacent west Atlantic. This event led to the phylogenetic and biogeographic founding of crown Sirenia with the Dugongidae-Trichechidae split occurring at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary (~33.9 Ma), temporally coincident with the onset of dropping global sea levels and temperatures. This region became the nexus of sirenian diversification and supported taxonomically-rich dugongid communities until the earliest Pliocene. The Dugonginae-Hydrodamalinae split occurred near Florida during the early Miocene (~21.2 Ma) and was followed by a west-bound dispersal that gave rise to the Pacific hydrodamalines. The late middle Miocene (~12.2 Ma) split of Dugong from all other dugongines also occurred near Florida and our analyses suggest that the Indo-Pacific distribution of modern dugongs is the result of a trans-Pacific dispersal. From at least the early Miocene, trichechid evolution was based entirely in South America, presumably within the Pebas Wetlands System. We infer that the eventual establishment of Amazon drainage into the South Atlantic allowed the dispersal of Trichechus out of South America no earlier than the mid-Pliocene. Our analyses provide a new temporal and biogeographic framework for understanding major events in sirenian evolution and their possible relationships to oceanographic and climatic changes. These hypotheses can be further tested with the recovery and integration of new fossil evidence.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Total evidence time-scaled phylogenetic and biogeographic models for the evolution of sea cows (Sirenia, Afrotheria)

Heritage

Seiffert

2022

PeerJ

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“…Evolutionary model fitting revealed that the two most-integrated traits (brain shape and dental morphology) followed the same trajectory, but that trajectory differed across guilds. Brain shape and dental morphology evolved under stabilising selection in folivores and following a BM process in frugivores, signalling the selective pressures acting during the phenotypic evolution of folivorous strepsirrhines and the ancestral frugivorous state in Strepsirrhini [ 25 , 28 , 49 ]. Our results suggest that adapting to insectivory correlated with directional selection in brain shape, the only guild with such a pattern.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Comprising more than 120 living species, they exhibit intermediate relative brain size between non-primate mammals and more derived anthropoids [ 8 , 9 ], and a variety of dietary and foraging specialisations that are reflected in their dental morphology [ 25 – 27 ]. Strepsirrhines are thought to have diversified in continental Africa, experiencing an early Oligocene partial extinction event, followed by colonisation of Madagascar, perhaps in two independent events [ 28 , 29 ]. Once in Madagascar, strepsirrhines diversified to fill a range of dietary niches (including folivory, frugivory, gummivory and insectivory) and specialise for different activity periods [ 25 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet drove brain and dental morphological coevolution in strepsirrhine primates

2022

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The evolution of the remarkably complex primate brain has been a topic of great interest for decades. Multiple factors have been proposed to explain the comparatively larger primate brain (relative to body mass), with recent studies indicating diet has the greatest explanatory power. Dietary specialisations also correlate with dental adaptations, providing a potential evolutionary link between brain and dental morphological evolution. However, unambiguous evidence of association between brain and dental phenotypes in primates remains elusive. Here we investigate the effect of diet on variation in primate brain and dental morphology and test whether the two anatomical systems coevolved. We focused on the primate suborder Strepsirrhini, a living primate group that occupies a very wide range of dietary niches. By making use of both geometric morphometrics and dental topographic analysis, we extend the study of brain-dental ecomorphological evolution beyond measures of size. After controlling for allometry and evolutionary relatedness, differences in brain and dental morphology were found between dietary groups, and brain and dental morphologies were found to covary. Historical trajectories of morphological diversification revealed a strong integration in the rates of brain and dental evolution and similarities in their modes of evolution. Combined, our results reveal an interplay between brain and dental ecomorphological adaptations throughout strepsirrhine evolution that can be linked to diet.

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“…Thus, a particular DNE value of the occlusal surface of a tooth (or tooth-like buccal elements in conodonts) should reflect a particular diet. However, DNE has, until now, been only used to analyze skeletal parts of mammals, especially primate teeth (Bunn et al 2011; Godfrey et al 2012; Winchester et al 2014; Prufrock et al 2016; Berthaume and Schroer 2017; López-Torres et al 2018; Pampush et al 2019; Fulwood 2020; Li et al 2020; Cuesta-Torralvo et al 2021), but also those of marsupials (Lang et al 2022), carnivorans (hyenas, bears) (Pérez-Ramos et al 2020; de Vries et al 2021; Lang et al 2022), scandentians (tree shrews) (Selig et al 2019), rodents (Prufrock et al 2016; Renaud and Ledevin 2017; Vermeer 2019; de Vries et al 2021), chiropterans (Pellegrom 2019; López-Aguirre et al 2022; Villalobos-Chaves and Santana 2022), multituberculates (Robson 2018), artiodactyls (suids) (Rannikko et al 2020), eulipotyphles (hedgehogs) (Vitek et al 2021), and one mammal stem group (Harper et al 2019). DNE is defined in such a way that it is independent of scale.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growth allometry and dental topography in Upper Triassic conodonts support trophic differentiation and molar-like element function

Kelz¹,

Guenser²,

Rigo³

et al. 2023

Paleobiology

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Conodont elements have high rates of morphological evolution, but the drivers of this disparity are debated. Positive allometric relationships between dimensions of food-processing surfaces and entire P1 elements have been used to argue that these elements performed mechanical digestion. If involved in food processing, the surface of the element should grow at a rate proportional to the increase in energy requirements of the animal. This inference of function relies on the assumption that the energy requirements of the animal grew faster (≅ mass0.75) than the tooth area (≅ mass0.67). We reevaluate this assumption based on metabolic rates across animals and calculate the allometry in platform-bearing P1 elements of Late Triassic co-occurring taxa, Metapolygnathus communisti and Epigondolella rigoi, using 3D models of ontogenetic series. Positive allometry is found in platform and element dimensions in both species, supporting a grasping-tooth hypothesis, based on the assumption that metabolic rate in conodonts scaled with body mass similarly to that in fish and ectotherms. We also calculate the curvature of the P1 platform surface using the Dirichlet normal energy (DNE) as a proxy for diet. DNE values increase with body mass, supporting the assumption that conodont metabolic rates increased faster than mass0.67. We finally find that adults in both taxa differ in their food bases, which supports trophic diversification as an important driver of the remarkable disparity of conodont elements.

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Widespread loss of mammalian lineage and dietary diversity in the early Oligocene of Afro-Arabia

Cited by 20 publications

References 69 publications

Total evidence time-scaled phylogenetic and biogeographic models for the evolution of sea cows (Sirenia, Afrotheria)

Total evidence time-scaled phylogenetic and biogeographic models for the evolution of sea cows (Sirenia, Afrotheria)

Diet drove brain and dental morphological coevolution in strepsirrhine primates

Growth allometry and dental topography in Upper Triassic conodonts support trophic differentiation and molar-like element function

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