Goswami, A;
(2007)
Phylogeny, diet, and cranial integration in australodelphian marsupials.
PLoS One
, 2
(10)
, Article e995. 10.1371/journal.pone.0000995.
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Abstract
Studies of morphological integration provide valuable information on the correlated evolution of traits and its relationship to long-term patterns of morphological evolution. Thus far, studies of morphological integration in mammals have focused on placentals and have demonstrated that similarity in integration is broadly correlated with phylogenetic distance and dietary similarity. Detailed studies have also demonstrated a significant correlation between developmental relationships among structures and adult morphological integration. However, these studies have not yet been applied to marsupial taxa, which differ greatly from placentals in reproductive strategy and cranial development and could provide the diversity necessary to assess the relationships among phylogeny, ecology, development, and cranial integration. This study presents analyses of morphological integration in 20 species of australodelphian marsupials, and shows that phylogeny is significantly correlated with similarity of morphological integration in most clades. Size-related correlations have a significant affect on results, particularly in Peramelia, which shows a striking decrease in similarity of integration among species when size is removed. Diet is not significantly correlated with similarity of integration in any marsupial clade. These results show that marsupials differ markedly from placental mammals in the relationships of cranial integration, phylogeny, and diet, which may be related to the accelerated development of the masticatory apparatus in marsupials.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Phylogeny, diet, and cranial integration in australodelphian marsupials. |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0000995 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000995 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2007 Anjali Goswami. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. PMCID: PMC1994583 This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant # 0308765, the Field Museum's Women-in-Science Fellowship, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Predoctoral Fellowship, the American Museum of Natural History collections study grant, and the University of Chicago Hinds Fund. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. |
| Keywords: | Animal Feed, Animals, Anthropology, Physical, Biological Evolution, Bone and Bones, Diet, Female, Humans, Male, Marsupialia, Models, Anatomic, Models, Genetic, Phylogeny, Physiology, Comparative, Skull |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/75753 |
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