Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 287, Issue 1938, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.2085
Keywords
insular gigantism; geometric morphometrics; allometry; island rule; Leithia; Hypnomys
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Funding
- Hull York Medical School
- European Federation of Experimental Morphology
- European Union [677774]
- Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad)/Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) [CGL2016-79795-R]
- NERC [NE/F017839/2, NE/F017936/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Insular gigantism-evolutionary increases in body size from small-bodied mainland ancestors-is a conceptually significant, but poorly studied, evolutionary phenomenon. Gigantism is widespread on Mediterranean islands, particularly among fossil and extant dormice. These include an extant giant population of Eliomys quercinus on Formentera, the giant Balearic genus dagger Hypnomys and the exceptionally large dagger Leithia melitensis of Pleistocene Sicily. We quantified patterns of cranial and mandibular shape and their relationships to head size (allometry) among mainland and insular dormouse populations, asking to what extent the morphology of island giants is explained by allometry. We find that gigantism in dormice is not simply an extrapolation of the allometric trajectory of their mainland relatives. Instead, a large portion of their distinctive cranial and mandibular morphology resulted from the population- or species-specific evolutionary shape changes. Our findings suggest that body size increases in insular giant dormice were accompanied by the evolutionary divergence of feeding adaptations. This complements other evidence of ecological divergence in these taxa, which span predominantly faunivorous to herbivorous diets. Our findings suggest that insular gigantism involves context-dependent phenotypic modifications, underscoring the highly distinctive nature of island faunas.
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