Ecological Correlates of Ghost Lineages in Ruminants
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Paleobiology, 38(1), 2012, pp. 101–111 Ecological correlates of ghost lineages in ruminants Juan L. Cantalapiedra, Manuel Herna´ndez Ferna´ndez, Gema M. Alcalde, Beatriz Azanza, Daniel DeMiguel, and Jorge Morales Abstract.—Integration between phylogenetic systematics and paleontological data has proved to be an effective method for identifying periods that lack fossil evidence in the evolutionary history of clades. In this study we aim to analyze whether there is any correlation between various ecomorphological variables and the duration of these underrepresented portions of lineages, which we call ghost lineages for simplicity, in ruminants. Analyses within phylogenetic (Generalized Estimating Equations) and non-phylogenetic (ANOVAs and Pearson correlations) frameworks were performed on the whole phylogeny of this suborder of Cetartiodactyla (Mammalia). This is the first time ghost lineages are focused in this way. To test the robustness of our data, we compared the magnitude of ghost lineages among different continents and among phylogenies pruned at different ages (4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 Ma). Differences in mean ghost lineage were not significantly related to either geographic or temporal factors. Our results indicate that the proportion of the known fossil record in ruminants appears to be influenced by the preservation potential of the bone remains in different environments. Furthermore, large geographical ranges of species increase the likelihood of preservation. Juan L. Cantalapiedra, Gema Alcalde, and Jorge Morales. Departamento de Paleobiologı´a, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, UCM-CSIC, Pinar 25, 28006 Madrid, Spain. E-mail: [email protected] Manuel Herna´ndez Ferna´ndez. Departamento de Paleontologı´a, Facultad de Ciencias Geolo´gicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid y Departamento de Cambio Medioambiental, Instituto de Geociencias, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientı´ficas, Jose´ Antonio Novais 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain Daniel DeMiguel. Departament de Faunes del Neogen i Quaternari, Institut Catala` de Paleontologia, Edifici ICP, Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona, 08193 Cerdanyola del Valle`s, Spain Beatriz Azanza. Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra, Facultad de Ciencias and Instituto de Ciencias de Arago´n, Universidad de Zaragoza, Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Accepted: 3 March 2011 Supplementary materials deposited at Dryad: doi: 10.5061/dryad.80n50 Introduction by adding inferred lineages for which no fossil has been recovered. Following this view, ghost An important part of our knowledge about lineages were defined as complete branches in evolution is based on information from fossils. an evolutionary tree that lacks a known fossil Patterns of preservation in the fossil record have record, but whose presence is inferred from provided a key tool for estimating dates the tree topology obtained by phylogenetic of appearance of new living forms on Earth analysis (Norell 1992; Smith 1994). These ghost and understanding events of diversification lineages can be recovered only by a phyloge- and extinction (Norell 1993). Nevertheless, our netic approach calibrated with paleontological comprehension of the many factors that may data (Norell 1996). Moreover, Smith (1994) also influence the preservation of species in the fossil identified range extensions, which are tem- record is still incomplete. For example, although poral gaps that must be added to the strati- stratigraphic sampling appears to be relevant graphic ranges of taxa in order to build an (Alroy et al. 2001; Crampton et al. 2003), we do evolutionary tree that fits temporal relation- not know whether ecological characteristics of ships with a phylogenetic analysis. In this species are also important in this context. The context some authors have surveyed the extent use of ecological data on modern species along to which assumptions of different cladistic with phylogenetic systematics synthesizing hypotheses may influence the estimations of informationfrombothextantandextinctspecies our paleontological knowledge (Norell and may provide a novel approach to this issue. Novacek 1992a,b; Weishampel 1996; O’Keefe Traditionally, cladistic hypotheses have and Sander 1999; Benton et al. 2000; Wagner been adjusted to stratigraphic ranges of species 2000a,b; Wills 2002; Pol and Norell 2006; ’ 2012 The Paleontological Society. All rights reserved. 0094-8373/12/3801–0006/$1.00 102 JUAN L. CANTALAPIEDRA ET AL. Worthy et al. 2006). For example, given two For the sake of simplicity, hereafter we use fossil taxa with different first appearances and the term ‘‘ghost lineages’’ to refer to ghost known fossil ranges that do not overlap, lineages, range extensions, and unrepresented different lengths of inferred range must be basal branch lengths. All of these have been added depending on different cladistic assump- included in studies assessing the congruence tions. If we assume that as organisms evolve among divergence dates from molecular phy- they give rise to new taxa in dichotomous splits, logenies and fossil ranges (Teeling et al. 2005; the evolutionary histories of two sister groups Johnson et al. 2006), paleodiversity estimates sharing a common ancestor should have equal (Lane et al. 2005), inferences about patterns of duration (Paul 1982). Thus, a range from the character acquisition (Sidor and Hopson first appearance of the younger taxon to the date 1998), and the magnitude of critical events of first appearance of the older taxon must be (Cavin and Forey 2007; Ruta and Benton added (Norell 1996). Conversely, an ancestor- 2008). In this work, we tested whether several descendant relationship could be assumed and ecomorphological attributes of the species we would only have to infer a range between (body mass, presence in biomes, range size, the last appearance of the older taxon (inferred diet, and locomotor modes) may influence the ancestor) and the first appearance of the duration of ghost lineages and, therefore, the younger taxon (Wagner 1995; 2000a,b). In likelihood of generating a complete fossil phylogenies containing fossil taxa, cladistic record. Our test focused on the suborder hypotheses and temporal calibration come from Ruminantia, which is the most speciose extant the same source: fossils. In such cases sampling clade of large land herbivores and presents bias directly affects phylogenetic accuracy, a fossil record that covers a time span of whichinturnmaybiastheassessmentofthe 50 Myr. Ruminants have developed a spec- fossil record. Only well-resolved topologies tacular diversity of ecomorphological special- yield a correct interpretation of gaps in the izations, with wide geographical and ecotypic fossil record (Wagner 2000a). ranges and existing species inhabiting every Molecular phylogenies provide a new tool terrestrial biome (Walter 1970). Such ecolog- in this scenario. Molecular-based phyloge- ical diversity and taxonomic richness, with netic analyses usually generate origin dates 197 extant species in 79 genera and about 300 earlier than the first appearance of known extinct genera (Grubb 1993; McKenna and fossil taxa (Hartenberger 1998; Adkins et al. Bell 1997; Herna´ndez Ferna´ndez and Vrba 2001; Huchon et al. 2002; Teeling et al. 2005). 2005a), prove ruminants to be a valuable Comparing both fossil and molecular esti- target for evolutionary research (Vrba and mates of lineages origin may shed some light Schaller 2000). on the accuracy with which the fossil record represents the evolutionary history of line- Materials and Methods ages leading to living species (Teeling et al. Data.—The phylogeny of suborder Rumi- 2005; Johnson et al. 2006). This approach, nantia was taken from the supertree pub- according to the criteria of Teeling et al. lished by Herna´ndez Ferna´ndez and Vrba (2005), places the oldest known fossil for each (2005a), which includes all the 197 extant and branch of the molecular tree and calculates recently extinct ruminant species. This super- the percentage of unrepresented basal branch tree is a consensus tree combining morpho- length. Nevertheless, although taxonomic logical, ethological and molecular information sampling bias in molecular trees of extant from every phylogeny published up to date, species is theoretically smaller than in phy- and includes a time calibration using paleon- logenies of extinct taxa, assessing the accu- tological data (Fig. 1). racy of the fossil record in this manner is To identify the correlations among ghost applicable only to lineages leading to extant lineages’ durations and the different ecomor- species and it is not exempt from limitations phological characters, we compiled data for (see further discussion in ‘‘Limitations of the 19 binary variables and two continuous Methods,’’ below). variables (Table 1). Following Telling et al. ECOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF GHOST LINEAGES 103 FIGURE 1. Supertree of all 197 extant and recently extinct species of ruminants (Herna´ndez Ferna´ndez and Vrba 2005a) showing the names of families and subfamilies. (2005) we collated the oldest known fossil for entire fossil history of this group (i.e., 0% each branch of the supertree and compared its missing),’’ we used each fossil for calculating age with the ages representing the beginning the underrepresented length of only one and end of that branch (see table in Appendix branch. 1 and figures in Appendix 2, in the online Information on body mass was compiled supplemental material). We calculated ghost for the 197 extant species of the group. We also lineage durations as the