Journal
JOURNAL OF MAMMALIAN EVOLUTION
Volume 24, Issue 4, Pages 453-463Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10914-016-9359-4
Keywords
PETM; Mammal evolution; Geometric morphometrics; Macroevolution; Paleoecology; Competitive exclusion
Categories
Funding
- Sigma Xi foundation
- American Society of Mammalogy
- Dorris and Samuel P. Wells fund of the University of California Museum of Paleontology
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Episodes of rapid faunal turnover in the fossil record are often used to examine processes driving macroevolutionary changes, such as competitive exclusion. The sudden appearance in the earliest Eocene of North America of artiodactyls and perissodactyls, and subsequent decline of endemic condylarths constitutes such an episode. It has been suggested that the specializations for high speed locomotion (cursoriality) that are present in artiodactyls and perissodactyls were key innovations of these orders accounting for their success in the Eocene and onwards. A quantitative geometric morphometric analysis of distal femoral articular morphology was used to examine changes in locomotor specializations in North American ungulates across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary. Condylarths were found to have displayed a broad range of locomotor adaptions, including cursoriality. The early Eocene had the broadest disparity in terms of taxonomic and locomotor contributions to morphological diversity. Changes in locomotor variety were associated with the disappearance of arboreal taxa, primarily condylarths. The initial impact of artiodactyls and perissodactyls in North America on existing locomotor diversity was limited and does not support a competitive exclusion hypothesis.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available