| 1. |
- Ericson, Per G P, 1956-, et al.
(författare)
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A 14,000-year-old genome sheds light on the evolution and extinction of a Pleistocene vulture
- 2022
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Ingår i: Communications Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2399-3642. ; 5:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The New World Vulture [Coragyps] occidentalis (L. Miller, 1909) is one of many species that were extinct by the end of the Pleistocene. To understand its evolutionary history we sequenced the genome of a 14,000 year old [Coragyps] occidentalis found associated with megaherbivores in the Peruvian Andes. occidentalis has been viewed as the ancestor, or possibly sister, to the extant Black Vulture Coragyps atratus, but genomic data shows occidentalis to be deeply nested within the South American clade of atratus. Coragyps atratus inhabits lowlands, but the fossil record indicates that occidentalis mostly occupied high elevations. Our results suggest that occidentalis evolved from a population of atratus in southwestern South America that colonized the High Andes 300 to 400 kya. The morphological and morphometric differences between occidentalis and atratus may thus be explained by ecological diversification following from the natural selection imposed by this new and extreme, high elevation environment. The sudden evolution of a population with significantly larger body size and different anatomical proportions than atratus thus constitutes an example of punctuated evolution.
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| 2. |
- Faurby, Sören, 1981, et al.
(författare)
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Brain expansion in early hominins predicts carnivore extinctions in East Africa
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecology Letters. - : Wiley. - 1461-023X .- 1461-0248. ; 23:3, s. 537-544
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While the anthropogenic impact on ecosystems today is evident, it remains unclear if the detrimental effect of hominins on co-occurring biodiversity is a recent phenomenon or has also been the pattern for earlier hominin species. We test this using the East African carnivore fossil record. We analyse the diversity of carnivores over the last four million years and investigate whether any decline is related to an increase in hominin cognitive capacity, vegetation changes or climatic changes. We find that extinction rates in large carnivores correlate with increased hominin brain size and with vegetation changes, but not with precipitation or temperature changes. While temporal analyses cannot distinguish between the effects of vegetation changes and hominins, we show through spatial analyses of contemporary carnivores in Africa that only hominin causation is plausible. Our results suggest that substantial anthropogenic influence on biodiversity started millions of years earlier than currently assumed.
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| 3. |
- Faurby, Sören, 1981, et al.
(författare)
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CarniFOSS: A database of the body mass of fossil carnivores
- 2021
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Ingår i: Global Ecology and Biogeography. - : Wiley. - 1466-822X .- 1466-8238. ; 30:10, s. 1958-1964
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Motivation Body mass is one of the most important determinants of animal ecology. Unlike other important traits it is also readily inferable from fossils and it is therefore one of the only traits that can be directly analysed and compared between fossil and contemporary communities. Despite this, no comprehensive database of the body mass of larger clades of extinct species exists. Analysis of fossils has therefore been restricted to small clades or to smaller, potentially biased, subsets of species. We here describe CarniFoss, an open-access database of body masses of all 1,322 extinct species of non-pinniped Carnivoramorpha and two related extinct groups of carnivorous mammals, Hyaenodonta and Oxyaenidae. Main types of variables contained We gathered lengths of teeth of fossil and extant species and body mass for extant species and a few of the best-known fossil species. Following this we estimated body mass for all species through phylogenetic imputation. Spatial location and grain Global, terrestrial. Time period and grain We collected data on all known species within the focal groups. The known species all lived in the Palaeogene, Neogene or Quaternary (i.e., the last 66 Myr). Major taxa and level of measurement We searched for data on reported tooth size of all described species of Carnivoramorpha (excluding pinnipeds) and selected extinct related groups (Hyaenodonta and Oxyaenidae). We combined this with measured body mass for all extant species and inferred body mass based on long-bones for selected extinct species, as well as a species-level phylogeny including all extant and extinct species in the group, and inferred the body mass for all species using phylogenetic imputation. Software format Data are provided as a series of .csv files, with all metadata in a separate PDF file.
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| 4. |
- Flink, Therese, et al.
(författare)
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Digital endocasts from two late Eocene carnivores shed light on the evolution of the brain at the origin of Carnivora
- 2022
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Ingår i: Papers in Paleontology. - London : The Palaeontological Association. - 2056-2802. ; , s. 1-19
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The evolution of the brain at the origin of Carnivora remains poorly understood, largely owing to the limited number of cranial endocasts known from Carnivoramorpha and basal crown Carnivora. Here, we use x-ray computed tomography to create digital endocasts of two early carnivores, Quercygale angustidens and Gustafsonia cognita. Quercygale angustidens is generally regarded as the sister taxon to Carnivora and Nimravidae and is thus of great interest to further our understanding of the evolutionary changes that occurred at the origin of Carnivora. Gustafsonia cognita provides a comparison to a contemporary crown carnivoran. We describe the endocasts of these two taxa, placing them in the context of carnivoramorphan phylogeny. Both endocasts preserve the cerebellum in great detail, resulting in a better understanding of the morphology of this part of the brain in early carnivores. Gustafsonia cognita, despite its small size, geological age and basal position, displays a sulcal pattern typical of Amphicyonidae, reaffirming its position within the family. Nimravids; and early carnivorans, such as Gustafsonia cognita, Proailurus lemanensis and Hesperocyon gregarius, have more expanded neocortices than Quercygale angustidens. Current evidence suggests that the increase in gyrification in basal Carnivoramorpha occurred mainly through elongation of existing sulci and entered a new phase at the origin of crown Carnivora. Additional sulci appeared in early members of the order, resulting in distinctive sulcal patterns in the different carnivoran families. Nevertheless, more endocasts of basal carnivorans and carnivoramorphans are needed to better understand the processes driving the evolution of the brain in this group.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Fortelius, Mikael, et al.
(författare)
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The Origin and Early History of NOW as It Happened
- 2023
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Ingår i: Evolution of Cenozoic Land Mammal Faunas and Ecosystems: 25 years of the NOW database of fossil mammals.. - : Springer. ; , s. 7-32
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The NOW database of fossil mammals came to be through a confluence of several initiatives spanning multiple decades. The first public version of NOW database was released in 1996 and the first Advisory Board was established the year after. Originally, NOW stood for Neogene of the Old World but with the gradual expansion of the database the acronym was eventually reassigned to stand for New and Old Worlds. The structure of what would become NOW was originally cloned from the ETE database of the Smithsonian Institution and the first NOW version accessible over the internet was a node of the ETE database. The first standalone, online version of NOW was launched in 2005 and the first formal steering group was established in 2009. During its existence, NOW has been funded, directly or indirectly, by several organizations but fundamentally it has always been an unfunded community effort, dependent on voluntary work by the participants.
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| 7. |
- Hopley, Philip J., et al.
(författare)
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Stable isotope analysis of carnivores from the Turkana Basin, Kenya: Evidence for temporally-mixed fossil assemblages
- 2023
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Ingår i: Quaternary International. - Amsterdam : Elsevier BV. - 1040-6182 .- 1873-4553.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Stable isotope palaeoecology of fossil mammals is a key research tool for understanding the environmental context of hominin evolution in the Plio-Pleistocene of Africa. Well studied mammal groups include bovids, suids, equids, proboscideans and primates, but to date there has been no in-depth study of modern and fossil carnivores. Here we produce an Africa-wide oxygen and carbon enamel isotope dataset for modern carnivores and compare it with fossil carnivore data sampled from the Plio-Pleistocene Omo Group of the Turkana Basin, Kenya. Comparison of modern carnivore carbon isotopes with satellite images of land cover indicates that carnivore δ13C is related to the proportion of woody cover in the local environment. Modern carnivore oxygen isotopes are strongly influenced by the δ18O of meteoric water, through drinking from standing water and through prey body fluids. Carbon isotope data from fossil carnivores shows close agreement with palaeovegetation reconstructions from δ13C of palaeosol carbonates from the same geological Members, and a similar long-term trend in δ13C values through time (4 Ma to 1 Ma), reflecting a gradual increase in the proportion of C4 grasses in the Turkana Basin. This increase in the δ13C of large carnivores is consistent with the evidence from other mammalian groups for an increase in the proportion of grazers compared to browsers and mixed feeders during this time interval. Two distinct trends within oxygen versus carbon isotope space indicates that the fossil carnivores lived during two distinct climatic regimes – one in which palaeo-lake Turkana was freshwater, and one in which the lake resembled its modern-day hyperalkaline state. These two climatic states most likely represent the end-members of precessionally-driven rainfall extremes over the Ethiopian Highlands. This indicates that each studied faunal assemblage from the Omo Group is a time- and climate-averaged palimpsest; this has significant implications for the interpretation of environmental signals and community palaeoecology derived from Turkana Basin fossil mammals, including early hominins.
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| 8. |
- Jiangzuo, Qigao, et al.
(författare)
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A dwarf sabertooth cat (Felidae: Machairodontinae) from Shanxi, China, and the phylogeny of the sabertooth tribe Machairodontini
- 2022
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Ingår i: Quaternary Science Reviews. - Amsterdam : Elsevier. - 0277-3791 .- 1873-457X. ; 284, s. 107517-107517
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The tribe Machairodontini is a major lineage of felid sabertooth cats that flourished in the late Cenozoic and included the top predators in the ecosystem of that time. As top predators members of the tribe had a profound influence on the paleoenvironment, yet the evolution and diversification of this tribe are unclear due to a lack of comprehensive revision and phylogenetic study. Here we describe a new dwarfed ecomorph of Machairodontini, Taowu liui gen. et sp. nov., from the Early Pleistocene of northern China,and carry out the best sampled phylogeny of the subfamily to date. Our analyses support that the African Mio-Pleistocene Lokotunjailurus represents an early divergent group, convergent with the Amphimachairodus-Homotheriina lineage in dental traits. The derived Pliocene to Pleistocene subtribe Homotheriina originated in Africa, from Adeilosmilus gen. nov. kabir or very a closely related taxon. Taowu liui gen. et sp. nov. belongs to a sister clade to Homotheriina. The Plio-Pleistocene Homotheriina of theNew World belong to a monophyletic group in which Ischyrosmilus-Xenosmilus show a gradual adaptation to handling slow and powerful prey, whereas the true Homotherium only appeared after theMiddle Pleistocene, in a separate intercontinental dispersal event.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Kitchener, A.C., et al.
(författare)
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Systematics, evolution and genetics of bears
- 2020
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Ingår i: <em>Bears of the World: Ecology, Conservation, and Management</em>. - Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press. ; , s. 3-20
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)
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