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Iterative Evolution of Sympatric Seacow (Dugongidae, Sirenia) Assemblages during the Past ∼26 Million Years
Extant sirenians show allopatric distributions throughout most of their range. However, their fossil record shows evidence of multispecies communities throughout most of the past ∼26 million years, in different oceanic basins. Morphological differences among co-occurring sirenian taxa suggest that r...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2012
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3272043/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22319622 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031294 |
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author | Velez-Juarbe, Jorge Domning, Daryl P. Pyenson, Nicholas D. |
author_facet | Velez-Juarbe, Jorge Domning, Daryl P. Pyenson, Nicholas D. |
author_sort | Velez-Juarbe, Jorge |
collection | PubMed |
description | Extant sirenians show allopatric distributions throughout most of their range. However, their fossil record shows evidence of multispecies communities throughout most of the past ∼26 million years, in different oceanic basins. Morphological differences among co-occurring sirenian taxa suggest that resource partitioning played a role in structuring these communities. We examined body size and ecomorphological differences (e.g., rostral deflection and tusk morphology) among sirenian assemblages from the late Oligocene of Florida, early Miocene of India and early Pliocene of Mexico; each with three species of the family Dugongidae. Although overlapping in several ecomorphological traits, each assemblage showed at least one dominant trait in which coexisting species differed. Fossil sirenian occurrences occasionally are monotypic, but the assemblages analyzed herein show iterative evolution of multispecies communities, a phenomenon unparalleled in extant sirenian ecology. As primary consumers of seagrasses, these communities likely had a strong impact on past seagrass ecology and diversity, although the sparse fossil record of seagrasses limits direct comparisons. Nonetheless, our results provide robust support for previous suggestions that some sirenians in these extinct assemblages served as keystone species, controlling the dominance of climax seagrass species, permitting more taxonomically diverse seagrass beds (and sirenian communities) than many of those observed today. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3272043 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-32720432012-02-08 Iterative Evolution of Sympatric Seacow (Dugongidae, Sirenia) Assemblages during the Past ∼26 Million Years Velez-Juarbe, Jorge Domning, Daryl P. Pyenson, Nicholas D. PLoS One Research Article Extant sirenians show allopatric distributions throughout most of their range. However, their fossil record shows evidence of multispecies communities throughout most of the past ∼26 million years, in different oceanic basins. Morphological differences among co-occurring sirenian taxa suggest that resource partitioning played a role in structuring these communities. We examined body size and ecomorphological differences (e.g., rostral deflection and tusk morphology) among sirenian assemblages from the late Oligocene of Florida, early Miocene of India and early Pliocene of Mexico; each with three species of the family Dugongidae. Although overlapping in several ecomorphological traits, each assemblage showed at least one dominant trait in which coexisting species differed. Fossil sirenian occurrences occasionally are monotypic, but the assemblages analyzed herein show iterative evolution of multispecies communities, a phenomenon unparalleled in extant sirenian ecology. As primary consumers of seagrasses, these communities likely had a strong impact on past seagrass ecology and diversity, although the sparse fossil record of seagrasses limits direct comparisons. Nonetheless, our results provide robust support for previous suggestions that some sirenians in these extinct assemblages served as keystone species, controlling the dominance of climax seagrass species, permitting more taxonomically diverse seagrass beds (and sirenian communities) than many of those observed today. Public Library of Science 2012-02-03 /pmc/articles/PMC3272043/ /pubmed/22319622 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031294 Text en This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration, which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Velez-Juarbe, Jorge Domning, Daryl P. Pyenson, Nicholas D. Iterative Evolution of Sympatric Seacow (Dugongidae, Sirenia) Assemblages during the Past ∼26 Million Years |
title | Iterative Evolution of Sympatric Seacow (Dugongidae, Sirenia) Assemblages during the Past ∼26 Million Years |
title_full | Iterative Evolution of Sympatric Seacow (Dugongidae, Sirenia) Assemblages during the Past ∼26 Million Years |
title_fullStr | Iterative Evolution of Sympatric Seacow (Dugongidae, Sirenia) Assemblages during the Past ∼26 Million Years |
title_full_unstemmed | Iterative Evolution of Sympatric Seacow (Dugongidae, Sirenia) Assemblages during the Past ∼26 Million Years |
title_short | Iterative Evolution of Sympatric Seacow (Dugongidae, Sirenia) Assemblages during the Past ∼26 Million Years |
title_sort | iterative evolution of sympatric seacow (dugongidae, sirenia) assemblages during the past ∼26 million years |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3272043/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22319622 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031294 |
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