DOCSLIB.ORG

Durham Research Online

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Durham Research Online Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 28 August 2015 Version of attached le: Published Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Hogg, R. and Godfrey, L. and Schwartz, G. and Dirks, W. and Bromage, T. (2015) 'Lemur biorhythms and life history evolution.', PLoS ONE., 10 (8). e0134210. Further information on publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134210 Publisher's copyright statement: Copyright: c 2015 Hogg et al. 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. Additional information: Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk RESEARCH ARTICLE Lemur Biorhythms and Life History Evolution Russell T. Hogg1*, Laurie R. Godfrey2, Gary T. Schwartz3, Wendy Dirks4, Timothy G. Bromage5 1 Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida, United States of America, 2 Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, United States of America, 3 Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America, 4 Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom, 5 Department of Biomaterials and Biomimetics, and Department of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology, New York University College of Dentistry, New York, New York, United States of America a11111 * [email protected] Abstract Skeletal histology supports the hypothesis that primate life histories are regulated by a neu- OPEN ACCESS roendocrine rhythm, the Havers-Halberg Oscillation (HHO). Interestingly, subfossil lemurs are outliers in HHO scaling relationships that have been discovered for haplorhine primates Citation: Hogg RT, Godfrey LR, Schwartz GT, Dirks W, Bromage TG (2015) Lemur Biorhythms and Life and other mammals. We present new data to determine whether these species represent History Evolution. PLoS ONE 10(8): e0134210. the general lemur or strepsirrhine condition and to inform models about neuroendocrine- doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0134210 mediated life history evolution. We gathered the largest sample to date of HHO data from Editor: Alistair Robert Evans, Monash University, histological sections of primate teeth (including the subfossil lemurs) to assess the relation- AUSTRALIA ship of these chronobiological measures with life history-related variables including body Received: September 24, 2014 mass, brain size, age at first female reproduction, and activity level. For anthropoids, these Accepted: July 7, 2015 variables show strong correlations with HHO conforming to predictions, though body mass and endocranial volume are strongly correlated with HHO periodicity in this group. However, Published: August 12, 2015 lemurs (possibly excepting Daubentonia) do not follow this pattern and show markedly less Copyright: © 2015 Hogg et al. This is an open variability in HHO periodicity and lower correlation coefficients and slopes. Moreover, body access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits mass is uncorrelated, and brain size and activity levels are more strongly correlated with unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any HHO periodicity in these animals. We argue that lemurs evolved this pattern due to selec- medium, provided the original author and source are tion for risk-averse life histories driven by the unpredictability of the environment in Mada- credited. gascar. These results reinforce the idea that HHO influences life history evolution differently Data Availability Statement: All data incorporated in in response to specific ecological selection regimes. this study are available in the supplemental information, specifically S2 Table. Funding: This work was supported by National Science Foundation (http://www.nsf.gov) grants BCS- 0622479 (RTH), BCS-0237338, BCS-0503988 (LRG Introduction and GTS), and BCS-1062680 (TGB); The Natural History Collections at the University of Massachusetts Growth, metabolism, and reproductive physiology all have a role to play in the allocation of (http://bcrc.bio.umass.edu/ummnh/) (LRG); The resources over individual lifespans, and have all been implicated in multiple explanatory mod- Royal Society of London (http://www.royalsociety.org) els of life history evolution (e.g. [1–6]). While many of the effects of ecology on life history (WD); The Institute of Human Origins (https://iho.asu. edu) (GTS); and the Max Planck Research Award have been understood for some time, the manner in which the evolution of physiological sys- (http://www.mpg.de/en), which is endowed by the tems is coordinated to achieve particular life history outcomes remains unclear. Recently, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research Bromage et al. [2,3,7] used histological evidence from primate dental and osseous tissues to PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0134210 August 12, 2015 1 / 17 Lemur Biorhythms and Life History Evolution to the Max Planck Society and the Alexander von address this question. Using vitally labeled bone to assess the chronology between growth Humboldt Foundation in respect of the Hard Tissue increments in bones (lamellae), they showed that lamellae are laid down with a specific period- Research Program in Human Paleobiomics (TGB). icity, which ranged from 1 day in rats to 8 days in humans. Moreover, they demonstrated that The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or the lamellar periodicity matches that of long-period growth increments in tooth enamel, preparation of the manuscript. known as striae of Retzius. This periodicity occurs as a multiple of whole days and is variable among and within some taxa, but not within individuals. Mammalian periodicities range Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. between 1 and 14 days [8,9], and manifest as daily increments between adjacent striae of Retzius, known as cross striations. While dental incremental growth lines have long been rec- ognized as periodic structures [10], the recognition that lamellae are periodic is new. Although bones and teeth are both mineralized tissues, they have different cellular and developmental origins; dental tissues, in fact, have origins from both ectoderm-derived epithe- lium (enamel) and mesenchyme (dentine), and both express long-period growth lines (called Andresen lines in dentine, while von Ebner lines between them are daily) [7]. The synchroniza- tion of enamel, dentine, and bone suggests a central mechanism operating systemically to regu- late tooth and bone development as well as the growth of other organ and tissue systems. Bromage et al. term this common biorhythm the Havers-Halberg Oscillation (HHO), and argue that it is controlled centrally by the hypothalamus via oscillations in sympathetic nervous output [2,3]. These oscillations are hypothesized to control cell proliferation and thus growth rates, metabolic rates, and body mass. If this is the case we would expect the HHO to have an expression in soft tissues as well as mineralized tissues, and several studies have provided evi- dence that this is the case. For example, in 2007 Brown et al. [11] demonstrated that mammal fibroblasts from different species lose the allometric scaling of their metabolism when removed from the physiological context of their host organism, and begin to behave similarly to one another; in other words, metabolic rates of in situ fibroblasts scale with body mass across spe- cies, whereas metabolic rates of explanted fibroblasts from the same species do not scale. This suggests that a central physiological mechanism is responsible for coordinating metabolic func- tion among the cells that make up an organism. It has also been demonstrated that all primate tissue and organ masses necessarily covary with body mass, and thus also scale with HHO peri- odicity in a manner similar to one another [12]; this indicates the HHO's general applicability to most of the body's cellular milieu. Bromage et al. [3] have also assessed HHO with regard to temporal life history variables and have shown a link between HHO periodicity and estrous cycling in anthropoids, and have noted several potential physiological pathways through which the HHO can affect metabolism, growth, and reproduction. Accordingly, the HHO would act as a metronome around which life history physiology is organized. Following this model, high-frequency HHO oscillations (e.g. 2–3 days) will foster more rapid cell proliferation and faster overall life histories linked to smaller body size, while low-frequency HHO oscillations (e.g., 8–9 days) will have the opposite effect. A more detailed discussion
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Fossil Lemur from Northern Madagascar (Palaeopropithecidae/Primate Evolution/Postcranium) WILLIAM L
    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 88, pp. 9082-9086, October 1991 Evolution Phylogenetic and functional affinities of Babakotia (Primates), a fossil lemur from northern Madagascar (Palaeopropithecidae/primate evolution/postcranium) WILLIAM L. JUNGERSt, LAURIE R. GODFREYt, ELWYN L. SIMONS§, PRITHUJIT S. CHATRATH§, AND BERTHE RAKOTOSAMIMANANA$ tDepartment of Anatomical Sciences, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 117948081; tDepartment of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003; §Department of Biological Anatomy and Anthropology and Primate Center, Duke University, Durham, NC 27705; and IService de Paldontologie, Universit6 d'Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar Contributed by Elwyn L. Simons, July 2, 1991 ABSTRACT Recent paleontological expeditions to the An- Craniodental Anatomy and Tooth Shape karana range of northern Madagascar have recovered the partial remains offour individuals ofa newly recognized extinct With an estimated body mass ofjust over 15 kg, Babakotia lemur, Babakoda radofia. Craniodental and postcranial ma- is a medium-sized indroid somewhat larger than the largest terial serve to identify Babakota as a member of the palae- living indrid (Indri) but similar in size to several of the opropithecids (also including the extinct genera Palaeopropith- smallest extinct lemurs, Mesopropithecus and Pachylemur ecus, Archaeoindris, and Mesopropithecus). Living indrids (4). A detailed description of the maxillary dentition of form the sister group to this fossil lade. The postcranial Babakotia exists
    [Show full text]
  • Coexistence of Confamilial, Folivorous Indriids, Propithecus Diadema And
    Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations Arts & Sciences Spring 5-15-2017 Coexistence of Confamilial, Folivorous Indriids, Propithecus diadema and Indri indri, at Betampona Strict Nature Reserve, Madagascar Lana Kerker Oliver Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds Part of the Biodiversity Commons, Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons, Natural Resources and Conservation Commons, and the Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons Recommended Citation Oliver, Lana Kerker, "Coexistence of Confamilial, Folivorous Indriids, Propithecus diadema and Indri indri, at Betampona Strict Nature Reserve, Madagascar" (2017). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1134. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/1134 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts & Sciences at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Department of Anthropology Dissertation Examination Committee Crickette Sanz, Chair Kari Allen Benjamin Z. Freed Jane Phillips-Conroy David Strait Mrinalini Watsa Coexistence of Confamilial, Folivorous Indriids, Propithecus diadema and Indri indri, at Betampona Strict
    [Show full text]
  • The Biogeography of Large Islands, Or How Does the Size of the Ecological Theater Affect the Evolutionary Play
    The biogeography of large islands, or how does the size of the ecological theater affect the evolutionary play Egbert Giles Leigh, Annette Hladik, Claude Marcel Hladik, Alison Jolly To cite this version: Egbert Giles Leigh, Annette Hladik, Claude Marcel Hladik, Alison Jolly. The biogeography of large islands, or how does the size of the ecological theater affect the evolutionary play. Revue d’Ecologie, Terre et Vie, Société nationale de protection de la nature, 2007, 62, pp.105-168. hal-00283373 HAL Id: hal-00283373 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00283373 Submitted on 14 Dec 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. THE BIOGEOGRAPHY OF LARGE ISLANDS, OR HOW DOES THE SIZE OF THE ECOLOGICAL THEATER AFFECT THE EVOLUTIONARY PLAY? Egbert Giles LEIGH, Jr.1, Annette HLADIK2, Claude Marcel HLADIK2 & Alison JOLLY3 RÉSUMÉ. — La biogéographie des grandes îles, ou comment la taille de la scène écologique infl uence- t-elle le jeu de l’évolution ? — Nous présentons une approche comparative des particularités de l’évolution dans des milieux insulaires de différentes surfaces, allant de la taille de l’île de La Réunion à celle de l’Amé- rique du Sud au Pliocène.
    [Show full text]
  • For Peer Review
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE Page 1 of 57 Journal of Morphology provided by Archivio della Ricerca - Università di Pisa 1 2 3 Title: The locomotion of Babakotia radofilai inferred from epiphyseal and diaphyseal 4 5 6 morphology of the humerus and femur. 7 8 9 Damiano Marchi1,2*, Christopher B. Ruff3, Alessio Capobianco, 1,4, Katherine L. Rafferty5, 10 11 Michael B. Habib6, Biren A. Patel2,6 12 13 14 1 15 Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, 56126 16 17 2 18 Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South 19 20 Africa, WITS 2050 For Peer Review 21 22 23 3 Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution, Johns Hopkins University School of 24 25 26 Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21111 27 28 4 29 Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy, 56126 30 31 5 32 Department of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 33 34 35 98195 36 37 6 38 Department of Cell and Neurobiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern 39 40 California, Los Angeles, CA 90033 41 42 43 Text pages: 28; Bibliography pages: 9; Figures: 6; Tables: 6 Appendices: 1 44 45 46 Running title: Babakotia radofilai postcranial suspensory adaptations 47 48 49 *Corresponding author: 50 51 52 Damiano Marchi 53 54 55 56 Address: Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Pisa, Via Derna, 1 - ZIP 56126, Pisa - Italy 57 58 59 Ph: +39 050 2211350; Fax: +39 050 2211475 60 1 John Wiley & Sons Journal of Morphology Page 2 of 57 1 2 3 Email: [email protected]
    [Show full text]
  • A Reconstruction of the Vienna Skull of Hadropithecus Stenognathus
    A reconstruction of the Vienna skull of SEE COMMENTARY Hadropithecus stenognathus T. M. Ryan*, D. A. Burney†, L. R. Godfrey‡,U.B.Go¨ hlich§, W. L. Jungers¶, N. Vaseyʈ, Ramilisonina**, A. Walker*††, and G. W. Weber‡‡ *Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802; †National Tropical Botanical Garden, Kalaheo, HI 96741; ‡Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003; §Department of Geology and Paleontology, Natural History Museum of Vienna, A-1010 Vienna, Austria; ¶Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794; ʈDepartment of Anthropology, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97202; **Muse´e d’Art et d’Arche´ologie, 17 Rue du Docteur Villette, Antananarivo 101, Madagascar; and ‡‡Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria Contributed by Alan Walker, May 30, 2008 (sent for review April 25, 2008) Franz Sikora found the first specimen and type of the recently the Imperial Austrian Academy of Sciences first to the zoological extinct Hadropithecus stenognathus in Madagascar in 1899 and department of the Natural History Museum of Vienna and later, sent it to Ludwig Lorenz von Liburnau of the Austrian Imperial in 1934, to the geological-paleontological department. Academy of Sciences. Later, he sent several more specimens in- Much of a subadult skeleton belonging to this species was cluding a subadult skull that was described by Lorenz von Liburnau found during new excavations at Andrahomana in 2003 (7). Two in 1902. In 2003, some of us excavated at the locality and found frontal fragments were found, and these, together with most of more specimens belonging to this species, including much of a the postcranial bones, belong to the skull.
    [Show full text]
  • Madagascar Conservation & Development
    MADAGASCAR CONSERVATION & DEVELOPMENT VOLUME 7 | ISSUE 1 — JUNE 2012 PAGE 23 ARTICLE http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/mcd.v7i1.5 Early Holocene fauna from a new subfossil site: A first assessment from Christmas River, south cen- tral Madagascar Kathleen M. MuldoonI,II, Brooke E. CrowleyIII, Laurie Correspondence: R. GodfreyIV, Armand RasoamiaramananaV, Adam Kathleen M. Muldoon AronsonVI, Jukka JernvallVII, Patricia C. WrightVI and Department of Anatomy, The Geisel School of Medicine at Elwyn L. SimonsVIII Dartmouth, HB 7100, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 U.S.A. E - mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT les écosyst�mes modernes qui sont dans un état de bouleverse-bouleverse- We report on faunal remains recovered during recent explo- ment écologique. Certaines plantes endémiques, par exemple, rations at ‘Christmas River’, the only subfossil locality known ont perdu d’importantes esp�ces mutualistes, des animaux from Madagascar’s south central plateau. Recovered remains ont été obligés d’exploiter d’autres ressources ou habiter des of several extinct taxa date to approximately 10,000 14C years endroits auxquels ils sont mal adaptés. La diversité des plantes before present (BP), including crocodiles, tortoises, the elephant et des animaux a diminué, est menacée ou a même compl�te- bird Aepyornis, the carnivoran Cryptoprocta spelea, the lemurs ment disparue de certaines routes de dissémination. Bien que Archaeolemur majori, Pachylemur insignis, and Megaladapis l’Homme soit largement incriminé dans son rôle de déclencheur edwardsi, and abundant remains of the dwarf hippopotamus, de ces extinctions massives, les transformations anthropiques Hippopotamus lemerlei. The presence of southern - limited, qui ont contribué au changement du climat sont controversées.
    [Show full text]
  • Fleagle and Lieberman 2015F.Pdf
    15 Major Transformations in the Evolution of Primate Locomotion John G. Fleagle* and Daniel E. Lieberman† Introduction Compared to other mammalian orders, Primates use an extraordinary diversity of locomotor behaviors, which are made possible by a complementary diversity of musculoskeletal adaptations. Primate locomotor repertoires include various kinds of suspension, bipedalism, leaping, and quadrupedalism using multiple pronograde and orthograde postures and employing numerous gaits such as walking, trotting, galloping, and brachiation. In addition to using different locomotor modes, pri- mates regularly climb, leap, run, swing, and more in extremely diverse ways. As one might expect, the expansion of the field of primatology in the 1960s stimulated efforts to make sense of this diversity by classifying the locomotor behavior of living primates and identifying major evolutionary trends in primate locomotion. The most notable and enduring of these efforts were by the British physician and comparative anatomist John Napier (e.g., Napier 1963, 1967b; Napier and Napier 1967; Napier and Walker 1967). Napier’s seminal 1967 paper, “Evolutionary Aspects of Primate Locomotion,” drew on the work of earlier comparative anatomists such as LeGros Clark, Wood Jones, Straus, and Washburn. By synthesizing the anatomy and behavior of extant primates with the primate fossil record, Napier argued that * Department of Anatomical Sciences, Health Sciences Center, Stony Brook University † Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University 257 You are reading copyrighted material published by University of Chicago Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. fig. 15.1 Trends in the evolution of primate locomotion.
    [Show full text]
  • Duke University Dissertation Template
    Lemur Teeth in Three Keys: Dietary Adaptation, Ecospace Occupation, and Macroevolutionary Dynamics by Ethan L. Fulwood Department of Evolutionary Anthropology Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Doug Boyer, Supervisor ___________________________ Richard Kay, Chair ___________________________ Daniel McShea ___________________________ Blythe Williams ___________________________ Elizabeth St. Clair Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 ABSTRACT iv Lemur Teeth in Three Keys: Dietary Adaptation, Ecospace Occupation, and Macroevolutionary Dynamics by Ethan Fulwood Department of Evolutionary Anthropology Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Doug Boyer, Supervisor ___________________________ Richard Kay, Chair ___________________________ Daniel McShea ___________________________ Blythe Williams ___________________________ Elizabeth St. Clair An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 Copyright by Ethan Fulwood 2019 Abstract Dietary adaptation appears to have driven many aspects of the high-level diversification of primates. Dental topography metrics provide a means of quantifying morphological correlates of dietary adaptation
    [Show full text]
  • Evolution of Bone Cortical Compactness in Slow Arboreal Mammals
    bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.02.279836; this version posted September 3, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 Evolution of bone cortical compactness in slow arboreal mammals 2 3 Alfieri F.1,2, Nyakatura J.A.1, Amson E.2 4 1. Institut für Biologie, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. 5 6 2. Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung, Berlin, 7 Germany. 8 9 10 Abstract 11 Lifestyle convergences and related phenotypes are a major topic in evolutionary biology. Low bone 12 cortical compactness (CC), shared by the two genera of ‘tree sloths’, has been linked to their convergently 13 evolved slow arboreal ecology. The proposed relationship of low CC with ‘tree sloths’ lifestyle suggests a 14 potential convergent acquisition of this trait in other slow arboreal mammals. ‘Tree sloths’, ‘Lorisidae’, 15 Palaeopropithecidae, Megaladapis and koalas were included in a phylogenetically informed CC analysis of 16 the humerus and femur, as well as closely related but ecologically distinct taxa. We found that ‘tree sloths’ are 17 unparalleled by any analysed clade, in featuring an extremely low CC. A tendency for low CC was however 18 found in palaeopropithecids (especially Palaeopropithecus) and Megaladapis. On the other hand, low CC was 19 not found in ‘Lorisidae’. Koalas, although deviating from the compact structure generally observed in 20 mammals, are not clearly distinct from their sister taxon (wombats) and show humeral CC that is higher than 21 femoral CC.
    [Show full text]
  • Dental Topography Indicates Ecological Contraction of Lemur Communities
    AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 148:215–227 (2012) Dental Topography Indicates Ecological Contraction of Lemur Communities Laurie R. Godfrey,1* Julia M. Winchester,2,3 Stephen J. King,1 Doug M. Boyer,2,4 and Jukka Jernvall3 1Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 2Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-8081 3Institute for Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 4Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY 11210-2850 KEY WORDS dental ecology; complexity (OPCR); Dirichlet normal energy (DNE); subfossil lemurs ABSTRACT Understanding the paleoecology of extinct subfossil lemurs and compared these values to those of subfossil lemurs requires reconstruction of dietary prefer- an extant lemur sample. The two metrics succeeded in ences. Tooth morphology is strongly correlated with diet separating species in a manner that provides insights in living primates and is appropriate for inferring dietary into both food processing and diet. We used them to ecology. Recently, dental topographic analysis has shown examine the changes in lemur community ecology in great promise in reconstructing diet from molar tooth Southern and Southwestern Madagascar that accompa- form. Compared with traditionally used shearing metrics, nied the extinction of giant lemurs. We show that the dental topography is better suited for the extraordinary poverty of Madagascar’s frugivore community is a long- diversity of tooth form among subfossil lemurs and has standing phenomenon and that extinction of large-bodied been shown to be less sensitive to phylogenetic sources of lemurs in the South and Southwest resulted not merely shape variation.
    [Show full text]
  • Ancient DNA from Giant Extinct Lemurs Verifies Single Origin of Malagasy
    Ancient DNA from giant extinct lemurs confirms single origin of Malagasy primates K. Praveen Karanth†‡, Thomas Delefosse§, Berthe Rakotosamimanana¶, Thomas J. Parsonsʈ, and Anne D. Yoder†‡†† †Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, P.O. Box 208105, New Haven, CT 06520; §Laboratoire Codgene, 11 Rue Humann, 67085 Strasbourg, France; ¶34 Cite´ des Professeurs, Fort-Duchesne, Antananarivo 101, Madagascar; and ʈArmed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1413 Research Boulevard, Rockville, MD 20850 Edited by Elwyn L. Simons, Duke University Primate Center, Durham, NC, and approved February 8, 2005 (received for review November 9, 2004) The living Malagasy lemurs constitute a spectacular radiation of >50 species that are believed to have evolved from a common ancestor that colonized Madagascar in the early Tertiary period. Yet, at least 15 additional Malagasy primate species, some of which were relative giants, succumbed to extinction within the past 2,000 years. Their existence in Madagascar is recorded predominantly in its Holocene subfossil record. To rigorously test the hypothesis that all endemic Malagasy primates constitute a monophyletic group and to determine the evolutionary relationships among living and extinct taxa, we have conducted an ancient DNA analysis of subfossil species. A total of nine subfossil individuals from the extinct genera Palaeopropithecus and Megaladapis yielded ampli- fiable DNA. Phylogenetic analysis of cytochrome b sequences derived from these subfossils corroborates the monophyly of endemic Malagasy primates. Our results support the close rela- tionship of sloth lemurs to living indriids, as has been hypothesized on morphological grounds. In contrast, Megaladapis does not show a sister-group relationship with the living genus Lepilemur.
    [Show full text]
  • Subfossil Lemurs of Madagascar
    CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Subfossil Lemurs of Madagascar LAURIE R. GODFREY, WILLIAM L. JUNGERS, AND DAVID A. BURNEY Madagascar’s living lemurs (order Primates) belong to a radia- on steady, gradual diversifi cation would suggest. We believe tion recently ravaged by extirpation and extinction. There that the latter scenario is more consistent with the fossil are three extinct and fi ve extant families (two with extinct record. members) of lemurs on an island of less than 600,000 km2. The question of how lemurs got to Madagascar is still far This level of familial diversity characterizes no other primate from resolved (Godinot, 2006; Masters et al., 2006; Stevens radiation. The remains of up to 17 species of recently extinct and Heesy, 2006; Tattersall, 2006a, 2006b). It is clear that (or subfossil lemurs) have been found alongside those of still Madagascar (with the Indian plate) separated from Africa extant lemurs at numerous Holocene and late Pleistocene long before primates evolved and that it arrived at its present sites in Madagascar (fi gure 21.1, table 21.1). The closest rela- position relative to Africa by 120–130 Ma (Krause et al., 1997; tives of the lemurs are the lorisiform primates of continental Roos et al., 2004; Masters et al., 2006; Rabinowitz and Woods, Africa and Asia; together with the lemurs, these comprise the 2006). Most scholars favor chance rafting of an ancestral suborder Strepsirrhini. lemur from continental Africa to Madagascar (Krause et al., Most researchers have defended an ancient Gondwanan 1997; Kappeler, 2000; Roos et al., 2004; Rabinowitz and (African or Indo-Madagascan) origin for lemurs.
    [Show full text]