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High phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation

The initial radiation of Eosauropterygia during the Triassic biotic recovery represents a key event in the dominance of reptiles secondarily adapted to marine environments. Recent studies on Mesozoic marine reptile disparity highlighted that eosauropterygians had their greatest morphological diversi...

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Autores principales: Laboury, Antoine, Scheyer, Torsten M., Klein, Nicole, Stubbs, Thomas L., Fischer, Valentin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10476616/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37671356
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15776
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author Laboury, Antoine
Scheyer, Torsten M.
Klein, Nicole
Stubbs, Thomas L.
Fischer, Valentin
author_facet Laboury, Antoine
Scheyer, Torsten M.
Klein, Nicole
Stubbs, Thomas L.
Fischer, Valentin
author_sort Laboury, Antoine
collection PubMed
description The initial radiation of Eosauropterygia during the Triassic biotic recovery represents a key event in the dominance of reptiles secondarily adapted to marine environments. Recent studies on Mesozoic marine reptile disparity highlighted that eosauropterygians had their greatest morphological diversity during the Middle Triassic, with the co-occurrence of Pachypleurosauroidea, Nothosauroidea and Pistosauroidea, mostly along the margins of the Tethys Ocean. However, these previous studies quantitatively analysed the disparity of Eosauropterygia as a whole without focussing on Triassic taxa, thus limiting our understanding of their diversification and morphospace occupation during the Middle Triassic. Our multivariate morphometric analyses highlight a clearly distinct colonization of the ecomorphospace by the three clades, with no evidence of whole-body convergent evolution with the exception of the peculiar pistosauroid Wangosaurus brevirostris, which appears phenotypically much more similar to nothosauroids. This global pattern is mostly driven by craniodental differences and inferred feeding specializations. We also reveal noticeable regional differences among nothosauroids and pachypleurosauroids of which the latter likely experienced a remarkable diversification in the eastern Tethys during the Pelsonian. Our results demonstrate that the high phenotypic plasticity characterizing the evolution of the pelagic plesiosaurians was already present in their Triassic ancestors, casting eosauropterygians as particularly adaptable animals.
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spelling pubmed-104766162023-09-05 High phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation Laboury, Antoine Scheyer, Torsten M. Klein, Nicole Stubbs, Thomas L. Fischer, Valentin PeerJ Evolutionary Studies The initial radiation of Eosauropterygia during the Triassic biotic recovery represents a key event in the dominance of reptiles secondarily adapted to marine environments. Recent studies on Mesozoic marine reptile disparity highlighted that eosauropterygians had their greatest morphological diversity during the Middle Triassic, with the co-occurrence of Pachypleurosauroidea, Nothosauroidea and Pistosauroidea, mostly along the margins of the Tethys Ocean. However, these previous studies quantitatively analysed the disparity of Eosauropterygia as a whole without focussing on Triassic taxa, thus limiting our understanding of their diversification and morphospace occupation during the Middle Triassic. Our multivariate morphometric analyses highlight a clearly distinct colonization of the ecomorphospace by the three clades, with no evidence of whole-body convergent evolution with the exception of the peculiar pistosauroid Wangosaurus brevirostris, which appears phenotypically much more similar to nothosauroids. This global pattern is mostly driven by craniodental differences and inferred feeding specializations. We also reveal noticeable regional differences among nothosauroids and pachypleurosauroids of which the latter likely experienced a remarkable diversification in the eastern Tethys during the Pelsonian. Our results demonstrate that the high phenotypic plasticity characterizing the evolution of the pelagic plesiosaurians was already present in their Triassic ancestors, casting eosauropterygians as particularly adaptable animals. PeerJ Inc. 2023-09-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10476616/ /pubmed/37671356 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15776 Text en © 2023 Laboury et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Evolutionary Studies
Laboury, Antoine
Scheyer, Torsten M.
Klein, Nicole
Stubbs, Thomas L.
Fischer, Valentin
High phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation
title High phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation
title_full High phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation
title_fullStr High phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation
title_full_unstemmed High phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation
title_short High phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation
title_sort high phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation
topic Evolutionary Studies
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10476616/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37671356
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15776
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