IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v446y2007i7135d10.1038_nature05634.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The delayed rise of present-day mammals

Author

Listed:
  • Olaf R. P. Bininda-Emonds

    (Lehrstuhl für Tierzucht, Technical University of Munich, 85354 Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany
    Present addresses: Institut für Spezielle Zoologie und Evolutionsbiologie mit Phyletischem Museum, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, 07743 Jena, Germany (O.R.P.B.-E.); Centre for Macroevolution and Macroecology, School of Botany and Zoology, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia (M.C.).)

  • Marcel Cardillo

    (and
    Present addresses: Institut für Spezielle Zoologie und Evolutionsbiologie mit Phyletischem Museum, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, 07743 Jena, Germany (O.R.P.B.-E.); Centre for Macroevolution and Macroecology, School of Botany and Zoology, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia (M.C.).)

  • Kate E. Jones

    (Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regents Park, London NW1 4RY, UK)

  • Ross D. E. MacPhee

    (American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York 10024, USA)

  • Robin M. D. Beck

    (School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia)

  • Richard Grenyer

    (Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK)

  • Samantha A. Price

    (National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), Durham, North Carolina 27705, USA)

  • Rutger A. Vos

    (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada)

  • John L. Gittleman

    (Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA)

  • Andy Purvis

    (and
    NERC Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College, Silwood Park campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Olaf R. P. Bininda-Emonds & Marcel Cardillo & Kate E. Jones & Ross D. E. MacPhee & Robin M. D. Beck & Richard Grenyer & Samantha A. Price & Rutger A. Vos & John L. Gittleman & Andy Purvis, 2007. "The delayed rise of present-day mammals," Nature, Nature, vol. 446(7135), pages 507-512, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:446:y:2007:i:7135:d:10.1038_nature05634
    DOI: 10.1038/nature05634
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05634
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature05634?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tad Dallas & Andrew W Park & John M Drake, 2017. "Predicting cryptic links in host-parasite networks," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-15, May.
    2. Aris Katzourakis & Gkikas Magiorkinis & Aaron G Lim & Sunetra Gupta & Robert Belshaw & Robert Gifford, 2014. "Larger Mammalian Body Size Leads to Lower Retroviral Activity," PLOS Pathogens, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-11, July.
    3. Salvador Herrando-Pérez & Steven Delean & Barry W Brook & Phillip Cassey & Corey J A Bradshaw, 2014. "Spatial Climate Patterns Explain Negligible Variation in Strength of Compensatory Density Feedbacks in Birds and Mammals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-12, March.
    4. Ho, Lam Si Tung & Dinh, Vu & Nguyen, Cuong V., 2019. "Multi-task learning improves ancestral state reconstruction," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 33-39.
    5. Cristian R Altaba, 2009. "Universal Artifacts Affect the Branching of Phylogenetic Trees, Not Universal Scaling Laws," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(2), pages 1-13, February.
    6. Giacomo D’Ammando & Daniel W Franks & Jakob Bro-Jørgensen, 2022. "Living in mixed-sex groups limits sexual selection as a driver of pelage dimorphism in bovids," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 33(3), pages 541-548.
    7. Wilkinson, Richard D. & Tavaré, Simon, 2009. "Estimating primate divergence times by using conditioned birth-and-death processes," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 75(4), pages 278-285.
    8. Jonathan P Tennant & Norman MacLeod, 2014. "Snout Shape in Extant Ruminants," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-13, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:446:y:2007:i:7135:d:10.1038_nature05634. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.