10.5061/DRYAD.PC866T1NW
de Vries, Dorien
University of Salford
Heritage, Steven
Duke University
Borths, Matthew
Duke University
Sallam, Hesham
American University in Cairo
Seiffert, Erik
University of Southern California
Data from: Widespread loss of mammalian lineage and dietary diversity in
the early Oligocene of Afro-Arabia
Dryad
dataset
2021
FOS: Biological sciences
National Science Foundation
https://ror.org/021nxhr62
BCS-0416164
National Science Foundation
https://ror.org/021nxhr62
BCS-0819186
National Science Foundation
https://ror.org/021nxhr62
BCS-1231288
National Science Foundation
https://ror.org/021nxhr62
BCS-1824745
Leakey Foundation
https://ror.org/018kdpd27
Natural Environment Research Council
https://ror.org/02b5d8509
NE/T000341/1
2021-11-04T00:00:00Z
2021-11-04T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02707-9
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5645941
338888101 bytes
6
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Diverse lines of geological and geochemical evidence indicate that the
Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT) marked the onset of a global cooling
phase, rapid growth of the Antarctic ice sheet, and a worldwide drop in
sea level. Paleontologists have established that shifts in mammalian
community structure in Europe and Asia were broadly coincident with these
events, but the potential impact of early Oligocene climate change on the
mammalian communities of Afro-Arabia has long been unclear. Here we employ
dated phylogenies of multiple endemic Afro-Arabian mammal clades
(anomaluroid and hystricognath rodents, anthropoid and strepsirrhine
primates, and carnivorous hyaenodonts) to investigate lineage
diversification and loss since the early Eocene. These analyses provide
the first non-anecdotal evidence for widespread mammalian extinction in
the early Oligocene of Afro-Arabia, with almost two-thirds of peak late
Eocene diversity lost in these clades by ~30 Ma. Using homology-free
dental topographic metrics, we further demonstrate that the loss of
Afro-Arabian rodent and primate lineages was associated with a reduction
in molar occlusal topographic disparity, suggesting a correlated loss of
dietary diversity. These results raise new questions about the relative
importance of global versus local influences in shaping the evolutionary
trajectories of Afro-Arabia’s endemic mammals during the Oligocene.