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Attenuated evolution of mammals through the Cenozoic
Noirault, Eve Clavel, Julien Fabre, Anne-Claire Halliday, Thomas JD Churchill, Morgan Curtis, Abigail Watanabe, Akinobu Simmons, Nancy B
Noirault, Eve
Clavel, Julien
Fabre, Anne-Claire
Halliday, Thomas JD
Churchill, Morgan
Curtis, Abigail
Watanabe, Akinobu
Simmons, Nancy B
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2022-10-28
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2021-10-08
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Accepted version
Adobe PDF, 3.39 MB
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Accepted version
Adobe PDF, 135.23 MB
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Abstract
The Cenozoic diversification of placental mammals is the archetypal adaptive radiation. Yet, discrepancies between molecular divergence estimates and the fossil record fuel ongoing debate around the timing, tempo, and drivers of this radiation. Analysis of a three-dimensional skull dataset for living and extinct placental mammals demonstrates that evolutionary rates peak early and attenuate quickly. This long-term decline in tempo is punctuated by bursts of innovation that decreased in amplitude over the past 66 million years. Social, precocial, aquatic, and herbivorous species evolve fastest, especially whales, elephants, sirenians, and extinct ungulates. Slow rates in rodents and bats indicate dissociation of taxonomic and morphological diversification. Frustratingly, highly similar ancestral shape estimates for placental mammal superorders suggest that their earliest representatives may continue to elude unequivocal identification.
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Anjali Goswami et al. , Attenuated evolution of mammals through the Cenozoic. Science 378, 377-383 (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abm7525
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Copyright © 2022, The Authors. This document is the author’s final accepted version of the journal article. You are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.
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0036-8075
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1095-9203
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openAccess