Fossils and living taxa agree on patterns of body mass evolution: a case study with Afrotheria.
Fossils and living taxa agree on patterns of body mass evolution: a case study with Afrotheria.
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DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2015.2023
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发表时间：
2015-12-22
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Thomas GH
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Puttick MN;Thomas GH
大多数生命已经灭绝，因此将一些化石证据纳入宏观进化的分析通常被视为理解生命多样性和形态进化模式的必要条件。在这里，我们测试列入化石的影响，在研究非洲哺乳动物的身体大小的演变，一个分支，包括大象，海牛和象鼩。我们发现，包括化石提示对身体质量进化的分析影响不大;从一个小的祖先大小（约。100克），有一个转变的速度和质量增加，导致更大的身体类有蹄类和管齿类，无论化石是否包括或排除在分析。对于非洲兽，化石和形态特征数据的包含影响系统发育拓扑结构，但这些差异对身体质量进化模式的影响很小，这些身体质量进化模式与化石记录一致。我们的分析之间最大的差异来自进化模型，而不是化石的增加。对于某些分支，仅进行外部分析可能是可靠的，以重建身体质量的进化，但除了化石和仔细的模型选择可能会增加重建的宏观进化模式的信心和准确性。
Most of life is extinct, so incorporating some fossil evidence into analyses of macroevolution is typically seen as necessary to understand the diversification of life and patterns of morphological evolution. Here we test the effects of inclusion of fossils in a study of the body size evolution of afrotherian mammals, a clade that includes the elephants, sea cows and elephant shrews. We find that the inclusion of fossil tips has little impact on analyses of body mass evolution; from a small ancestral size (approx. 100 g), there is a shift in rate and an increase in mass leading to the larger-bodied Paenungulata and Tubulidentata, regardless of whether fossils are included or excluded from analyses. For Afrotheria, the inclusion of fossils and morphological character data affect phylogenetic topology, but these differences have little impact upon patterns of body mass evolution and these body mass evolutionary patterns are consistent with the fossil record. The largest differences between our analyses result from the evolutionary model, not the addition of fossils. For some clades, extant-only analyses may be reliable to reconstruct body mass evolution, but the addition of fossils and careful model selection is likely to increase confidence and accuracy of reconstructed macroevolutionary patterns.