10.5061/DRYAD.KH21QB76
Gómez, José María
University of Granada
Verdú, Miguel
Spanish National Research Council
Data from: Mutualism with plants drives primate diversification
Dryad
dataset
2012
ecological interactions
Primates
molecular phylogeny
2012-01-04T19:03:45Z
2012-01-04T19:03:45Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syr127
1709071 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Understanding the origin of diversity is a fundamental problem in biology.
Evolutionary diversification has been intensely explored during the last
years due to the development of molecular tools and the comparative
method. However, most studies are conducted using only information from
extant species. This approach probably leads to misleading conclusions,
especially because of inaccuracy in the estimation of extinction rates. It
is critical to integrate the information generated by extant organisms
with the information obtained from the fossil record. Unfortunately, this
integrative approach has been seldom performed, and thus our understanding
of the factors fueling diversification is still deficient. Ecological
interactions are a main factor shaping evolutionary diversification by
influencing speciation and extinction rates. Most attention has focused on
the effect of antagonistic interactions on evolutionary diversification.
In contrast, the role of mutualistic interactions in shaping
diversification has been much less explored. In this study, by combining
phylogenetic, neontological and paleontological information, we show that
a facultative mutualistic plant-animal interaction emerging from frugivory
and seed dispersal has most likely contributed to the diversification of
our own lineage, the primates. We compiled diet and seed dispersal ability
in 381 extant and 556 extinct primates. Using well-established molecular
phylogenies, we demonstrated that mutualistic extant primates had higher
speciation rates, lower extinction rates and thereby higher
diversification rates than non-mutualistic ones. Similarly, mutualistic
fossil primates had higher geological durations and smaller per capita
rates of extinction than non-mutualistic ones. As a mechanism underlying
this pattern, we found that mutualistic extinct and extant primates have
significantly larger geographic ranges, which promotes diversification by
hampering extinction and increasing geographic speciation. All these
outcomes together strongly suggest that the establishment of a facultative
mutualism with plants has greatly benefited primate evolution and fueled
its taxonomic diversification.
Figure S1Saturared structural equation models for data using both extant
(A) and extinct (B) primatesFigure S2Ecological role evolution along the
Cenozoic. (A) Temporal change in the proportion of fossil primates being
antagonistic or mutualistic. (B) Temporal change in the proportion of
fossil primates with different diet during the Cenozoic period. The
proportion of primates belonging to each ecological role or diet category
is found at each time as the vertical width of the region covered by it.
As observed, the proportion of mutualistic primates was gradullay
increasing throughout Cenozoic period.Figure S3Ecological role and species
duration (A) Temporal duration of mutualistic and antagonistic fossil
primates, quantified as the stratigraphic range in Ma. (B) Temporal
duration of extinct primate genera belonging to different diet. As
observed in the figure, primates belonging to different diet categories
had different temporal duration. However, this difference was exclusively
due to a longer duration of frugivorous primates consuming fleshy fruits
and putatively behaving as seed dispersers and to a shorter duration of
frugivorous primates consuming mostly seeds and hard fruits and behaving
as antagonistics. When comparing only within frugivores, the stratigraphic
range of antagonistic primates was significantly smaller than that of
mutualistic ones. In contrast, the temporal duration of faunivorous,
nectarivorous/gumnivorous and folivorous primates was statistically
identical. The SEs of the reported averages are shown as error bars.Figure
S4Relationship between diet category and geographic range of extant
primates.Figure S5Figure S6Relationship between body mass (in log kg) and
geological age (in Ma) (N= 184 species) of fossil primate genera.Appendix
S1_Living Primates DietLiving Primates DietAppendix S2_Fossil Primates
DietFossil Primates DietPrimates Diversification_supporting information
2nd
Worldwide