Evolutionary shifts in extant mustelid (Mustelidae: Carnivora) cranial shape, body size and body shape coincide with the Mid-Miocene Climate Transition
Evolutionary shifts in extant mustelid (Mustelidae: Carnivora) cranial shape, body size and body shape coincide with the Mid-Miocene Climate Transition
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DOI：
10.1098/rsbl.2019.0155
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发表时间：
2019-05
期刊：
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Chris J. Law
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Chris J. Law
环境变化可以导致表型特征的进化转变，这反过来又有助于开发新的适应景观和谱系多样化。在过去的50年里，全球变冷、干旱加剧和开阔草原的扩张是新的适应景观的主要例子，这些景观刺激了几个哺乳动物谱系和生态形态的多样性，如啮齿动物和大型食草性巨型动物。然而，这些环境变化是否促进了中小型捕食者形态的进化转变尚不清楚。在这里，我使用一个完整的头骨和身体形态数据集来研究在新生代的气候和环境变化期间，现存的芥虫(貂、水獭、臭鼬和黄鼠狼)的头骨形状、身体大小和身体形状的进化变化的时间。我发现，在中中新世气候转变开始后，所有这三个特征的进化转变都发生在现存的芥菜亚类中。这些芥状亚类首先向更细长的身体平面转移，然后同时向更小的身体尺寸和更健壮的头骨转移。我推测，这些头骨和身体形态的变化使八哥类能够利用与中新世中期至晚中新世气候和环境变化相关的新适应带，这有助于显著增加支系承载能力。
Environmental changes can lead to evolutionary shifts in phenotypic traits, which in turn facilitate the exploitation of novel adaptive landscapes and lineage diversification. The global cooling, increased aridity and expansion of open grasslands during the past 50 Myr are prime examples of new adaptive landscapes that spurred lineage and ecomorphological diversity of several mammalian lineages such as rodents and large herbivorous megafauna. However, whether these environmental changes facilitated evolutionary shifts in small- to mid-sized predator morphology is unknown. Here, I used a complete cranial and body morphological dataset to examine the timing of evolutionary shifts in cranial shape, body size and body shape within extant mustelids (martens, otters, polecats and weasels) during the climatic and environmental changes of the Cenozoic. I found that evolutionary shifts in all three traits occurred within extant mustelid subclades just after the onset of the Mid-Miocene Climate Transition. These mustelid subclades first shifted towards more elongate body plans followed by concurrent shifts towards smaller body sizes and more robust crania. I hypothesize that these cranial and body morphological shifts enabled mustelids to exploit novel adaptive zones associated with the climatic and environmental changes of the Mid to Late Miocene, which facilitated significant increases in clade carrying capacity.