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Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant

The 1-m-tall dwarf elephant Palaeoloxodon falconeri from the Pleistocene of Sicily (Italy) is an extreme example of insular dwarfism and epitomizes the Island Rule. Based on scaling of life-history (LH) traits with body mass, P. falconeri is widely considered to be ‘r-selected’ by truncation of the...

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Autores principales: Köhler, Meike, Herridge, Victoria, Nacarino-Meneses, Carmen, Fortuny, Josep, Moncunill-Solé, Blanca, Rosso, Antonietta, Sanfilippo, Rossana, Palombo, Maria Rita, Moyà-Solà, Salvador
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8613187/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34819557
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02192-4
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author Köhler, Meike
Herridge, Victoria
Nacarino-Meneses, Carmen
Fortuny, Josep
Moncunill-Solé, Blanca
Rosso, Antonietta
Sanfilippo, Rossana
Palombo, Maria Rita
Moyà-Solà, Salvador
author_facet Köhler, Meike
Herridge, Victoria
Nacarino-Meneses, Carmen
Fortuny, Josep
Moncunill-Solé, Blanca
Rosso, Antonietta
Sanfilippo, Rossana
Palombo, Maria Rita
Moyà-Solà, Salvador
author_sort Köhler, Meike
collection PubMed
description The 1-m-tall dwarf elephant Palaeoloxodon falconeri from the Pleistocene of Sicily (Italy) is an extreme example of insular dwarfism and epitomizes the Island Rule. Based on scaling of life-history (LH) traits with body mass, P. falconeri is widely considered to be ‘r-selected’ by truncation of the growth period, associated with an early onset of reproduction and an abbreviated lifespan. These conjectures are, however, at odds with predictions from LH models for adaptive shifts in body size on islands. To settle the LH strategy of P. falconeri, we used bone, molar, and tusk histology to infer growth rates, age at first reproduction, and longevity. Our results from all approaches are congruent and provide evidence that the insular dwarf elephant grew at very slow rates over an extended period; attained maturity at the age of 15 years; and had a minimum lifespan of 68 years. This surpasses not only the values predicted from body mass but even those of both its giant sister taxon (P. antiquus) and its large mainland cousin (L. africana). The suite of LH traits of P. falconeri is consistent with the LH data hitherto inferred for other dwarfed insular mammals. P. falconeri, thus, not only epitomizes the Island Rule but it can also be viewed as a paradigm of evolutionary change towards a slow LH that accompanies the process of dwarfing in insular mammals.
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spelling pubmed-86131872021-11-26 Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant Köhler, Meike Herridge, Victoria Nacarino-Meneses, Carmen Fortuny, Josep Moncunill-Solé, Blanca Rosso, Antonietta Sanfilippo, Rossana Palombo, Maria Rita Moyà-Solà, Salvador Sci Rep Article The 1-m-tall dwarf elephant Palaeoloxodon falconeri from the Pleistocene of Sicily (Italy) is an extreme example of insular dwarfism and epitomizes the Island Rule. Based on scaling of life-history (LH) traits with body mass, P. falconeri is widely considered to be ‘r-selected’ by truncation of the growth period, associated with an early onset of reproduction and an abbreviated lifespan. These conjectures are, however, at odds with predictions from LH models for adaptive shifts in body size on islands. To settle the LH strategy of P. falconeri, we used bone, molar, and tusk histology to infer growth rates, age at first reproduction, and longevity. Our results from all approaches are congruent and provide evidence that the insular dwarf elephant grew at very slow rates over an extended period; attained maturity at the age of 15 years; and had a minimum lifespan of 68 years. This surpasses not only the values predicted from body mass but even those of both its giant sister taxon (P. antiquus) and its large mainland cousin (L. africana). The suite of LH traits of P. falconeri is consistent with the LH data hitherto inferred for other dwarfed insular mammals. P. falconeri, thus, not only epitomizes the Island Rule but it can also be viewed as a paradigm of evolutionary change towards a slow LH that accompanies the process of dwarfing in insular mammals. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-11-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8613187/ /pubmed/34819557 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02192-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Köhler, Meike
Herridge, Victoria
Nacarino-Meneses, Carmen
Fortuny, Josep
Moncunill-Solé, Blanca
Rosso, Antonietta
Sanfilippo, Rossana
Palombo, Maria Rita
Moyà-Solà, Salvador
Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant
title Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant
title_full Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant
title_fullStr Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant
title_full_unstemmed Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant
title_short Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant
title_sort palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed sicilian elephant
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8613187/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34819557
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02192-4
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