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      A universal scaling relationship between body mass and proximal limb bone dimensions in quadrupedal terrestrial tetrapods

      research-article
      1 , , 2
      BMC Biology
      BioMed Central

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          Abstract

          Background

          Body size is intimately related to the physiology and ecology of an organism. Therefore, accurate and consistent body mass estimates are essential for inferring numerous aspects of paleobiology in extinct taxa, and investigating large-scale evolutionary and ecological patterns in the history of life. Scaling relationships between skeletal measurements and body mass in birds and mammals are commonly used to predict body mass in extinct members of these crown clades, but the applicability of these models for predicting mass in more distantly related stem taxa, such as non-avian dinosaurs and non-mammalian synapsids, has been criticized on biomechanical grounds. Here we test the major criticisms of scaling methods for estimating body mass using an extensive dataset of mammalian and non-avian reptilian species derived from individual skeletons with live weights.

          Results

          Significant differences in the limb scaling of mammals and reptiles are noted in comparisons of limb proportions and limb length to body mass. Remarkably, however, the relationship between proximal (stylopodial) limb bone circumference and body mass is highly conserved in extant terrestrial mammals and reptiles, in spite of their disparate limb postures, gaits, and phylogenetic histories. As a result, we are able to conclusively reject the main criticisms of scaling methods that question the applicability of a universal scaling equation for estimating body mass in distantly related taxa.

          Conclusions

          The conserved nature of the relationship between stylopodial circumference and body mass suggests that the minimum diaphyseal circumference of the major weight-bearing bones is only weakly influenced by the varied forces exerted on the limbs (that is, compression or torsion) and most strongly related to the mass of the animal. Our results, therefore, provide a much-needed, robust, phylogenetically corrected framework for accurate and consistent estimation of body mass in extinct terrestrial quadrupeds, which is important for a wide range of paleobiological studies (including growth rates, metabolism, and energetics) and meta-analyses of body size evolution.

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          Most cited references101

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          The delayed rise of present-day mammals.

          Did the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event, by eliminating non-avian dinosaurs and most of the existing fauna, trigger the evolutionary radiation of present-day mammals? Here we construct, date and analyse a species-level phylogeny of nearly all extant Mammalia to bring a new perspective to this question. Our analyses of how extant lineages accumulated through time show that net per-lineage diversification rates barely changed across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary. Instead, these rates spiked significantly with the origins of the currently recognized placental superorders and orders approximately 93 million years ago, before falling and remaining low until accelerating again throughout the Eocene and Oligocene epochs. Our results show that the phylogenetic 'fuses' leading to the explosion of extant placental orders are not only very much longer than suspected previously, but also challenge the hypothesis that the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event had a major, direct influence on the diversification of today's mammals.
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            PanTHERIA: a species-level database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals

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              Phylogenies and the Comparative Method: A General Approach to Incorporating Phylogenetic Information into the Analysis of Interspecific Data

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                BMC Biol
                BMC Biol
                BMC Biology
                BioMed Central
                1741-7007
                2012
                10 July 2012
                : 10
                : 60
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3B2
                [2 ]Department of Palaeobiology, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2C6
                Article
                1741-7007-10-60
                10.1186/1741-7007-10-60
                3403949
                22781121
                988ca066-8f33-4d3d-9266-a86b99ab3aa3
                Copyright ©2012 Campione and Evans; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 15 April 2012
                : 10 July 2012
                Categories
                Research Article

                Life sciences
                Life sciences

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