Dental Variation in Megabats (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae): Tooth Metrics Correlate with Body Size and Tooth Proportions Reflect Phylogeny

Zuercher, Madeleine E.; Monson, Tesla A.; Dvoretzky, Rena; Ravindramurthy, Shruti; Hlusko, Leslea J.

doi:10.1007/s10914-020-09508-7

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 121 publications

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“…Dental morphology has been shown to have both a phylogenetic and ecological signal, reflecting evolutionary relatedness as well as ecological differences within Chiroptera (e.g. Freeman 1988, 1995, 2000, Hand 1985, 1996, 1998, Santana et al 2011, Self 2015, Simmons et al 2016, Zuercher et al 2020. Our results also detected a dual phylogenetic and ecological signal in dental complexity variation and highlights DTA as a potential tool in the study of dental ecology and evolution in bats.…”

Section: Dta and Dietary Specialisations In Batssupporting

confidence: 61%

Dietary and body mass reconstruction of the Miocene neotropical batNotonycteris magdalenensis(Phyllostomidae) from La Venta, Colombia

López‐Aguirre

Czaplewski

Link

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The middle Miocene La Venta bat fauna is the most diverse bat palaeocommunity in South America, with at least 14 species recorded. They include the oldest plant-visiting bat in the New World, and some of the earliest representatives of the extant families Phyllostomidae, Thyropteridae and Noctilionidae. La Venta’s Notonycteris magdalenensis is an extinct member of the subfamily Phyllostominae, a group of modern Neotropical animalivorous and omnivorous bats, and is commonly included in studies of the evolution of Neotropical bats, but aspects of its biology remain unclear. In this study, we used a multivariate dental topography analysis (DTA) to reconstruct the likely diet of N. magdalenensis by quantitatively comparing measures of molar complexity with that of 25 modern phyllostomid and noctilionid species representing all major dietary habits in bats. We found clear differences in molar complexity between dietary guilds, indicating that DTA is potentially an informative tool to study bat ecomorphology. Our results suggest N. magdalenensis was probably an omnivore or insectivore, rather than a carnivore like its modern relatives Chrotopterus auritus and Vampryum spectrum. Also, we reconstructed the body mass of N. magdalenensis to be ∼50 g, which is larger than most insectivorous bats, but smaller than most carnivorous bats. Our results confirm that Notonycteris magdalenensis was probably not a specialised carnivore. It remains to be demonstrated that the specialised carnivory ecological niche was occupied by the same lineage of phyllostomines from at least the middle Miocene. Combining our diet and body mass reconstructions, we suggest that N. magdalenensis exhibits morphological pre-adaptations crucial for the evolution of specialised carnivory.

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Section: Dta and Dietary Specialisations In Batssupporting

confidence: 61%

Dietary and body mass reconstruction of the Miocene neotropical batNotonycteris magdalenensis(Phyllostomidae) from La Venta, Colombia

López‐Aguirre

Czaplewski

Link

et al. 2020

Preprint

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show abstract

“…Scapular morphology in bats has been correlated with the convergent evolution of dietary adaptations (Gaudioso et al 2020). Dental morphology has been shown to have both a phylogenetic signal and an ecological signal, reflecting evolutionary relatedness as well as ecological differences within Chiroptera (e.g., Hand 1985, 1996, 1998; Freeman 1988, 1995, 2000; Santana et al 2011; Self 2015; Simmons et al 2016; Zuercher et al 2020). Our results also detected a dual phylogenetic and ecological signal in dental complexity variation, which highlights DTA as a potential tool in the study of dental ecology and evolution in bats.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dietary and body-mass reconstruction of the Miocene neotropical batNotonycteris magdalenensis(Phyllostomidae) from La Venta, Colombia

López‐Aguirre¹,

Czaplewski²,

Link³

et al. 2021

Paleobiology

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With 14 species recorded, the Miocene La Venta bat fauna is the most diverse bat paleocommunity in South America. It includes the oldest plant-visiting bat in the New World and some of the earliest representatives of the extant families Phyllostomidae, Thyropteridae, and Noctilionidae. La Venta's Notonycteris magdalenensis is an extinct member of the subfamily Phyllostominae, a group of modern Neotropical animalivorous bats, and is commonly included in studies of the evolution of Neotropical bats, but aspects of its biology remain unclear. In this study, we used multivariate dental topography analysis (DTA) to reconstruct the diet of N. magdalenensis by quantitatively comparing measures of molar complexity with those of 25 modern noctilionoid species representing all major dietary habits in bats. We found clear differences in molar complexity between dietary guilds, indicating that DTA is potentially an informative tool to study bat ecomorphology. Our results suggest N. magdalenensis was probably an omnivore or insectivore, rather than a carnivore like its modern relatives Chrotopterus auritus and Vampyrum spectrum. Also, we reconstructed the body mass of N. magdalenensis to be ~95 g, larger than most insectivorous bats, but smaller than the largest carnivorous bat (V. spectrum). Our results confirm that N. magdalenensis was not a specialized carnivore. It remains to be demonstrated that the specialized carnivory ecological niche was occupied by the same lineage of phyllostomines from at least the middle Miocene. Combining our diet and body-mass reconstructions, we suggest that N. magdalenensis exhibits morphological pre-adaptations crucial for the evolution of specialized carnivory.

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“…We have a few hints. Previous analyses have shown that mandibular MMC is likely more evolutionarily conserved than PMM within catarrhine primates [ 38 ], across Boreoeutheria [ 53 ], between the different genera of megabats [ 54 ], and in the fossil record of the hominids [ 52 ]. Our results here for cercopithecids similarly demonstrate that the genetic mechanism captured by maxillary PMM appears to be more evolutionarily labile than maxillary MMC.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The mandibular versions of MMC and PMM were first identified for cercopithecid monkeys and then expanded to apes, revealing an episode of selection during the Late Miocene [ 38 ]. While we do not yet know the genetic mechanisms that underlie PMM and MMC, we do know that these two ratios reflect a genetic architecture that does not simultaneously influence body size or sex, and that appears to primarily influence variation in the relative sizes of teeth in the postcanine dentition of catarrhine primates [ 38 , 52 ] and many other mammals [ 53 , 54 ].…”

Section: Background: Traditional and G:p-mapped Dental Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Keeping 21st Century Paleontology Grounded: Quantitative Genetic Analyses and Ancestral State Reconstruction Re-Emphasize the Essentiality of Fossils

Monson

Brasil

Mahaney

et al. 2022

Biology

Self Cite

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Advances in genetics and developmental biology are revealing the relationship between genotype and dental phenotype (G:P), providing new approaches for how paleontologists assess dental variation in the fossil record. Our aim was to understand how the method of trait definition influences the ability to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary history in the Cercopithecidae, the Linnaean Family of monkeys currently living in Africa and Asia. We compared the two-dimensional assessment of molar size (calculated as the mesiodistal length of the crown multiplied by the buccolingual breadth) to a trait that reflects developmental influences on molar development (the inhibitory cascade, IC) and two traits that reflect the genetic architecture of postcanine tooth size variation (defined through quantitative genetic analyses: MMC and PMM). All traits were significantly influenced by the additive effects of genes and had similarly high heritability estimates. The proportion of covariate effects was greater for two-dimensional size compared to the G:P-defined traits. IC and MMC both showed evidence of selection, suggesting that they result from the same genetic architecture. When compared to the fossil record, Ancestral State Reconstruction using extant taxa consistently underestimated MMC and PMM values, highlighting the necessity of fossil data for understanding evolutionary patterns in these traits. Given that G:P-defined dental traits may provide insight to biological mechanisms that reach far beyond the dentition, this new approach to fossil morphology has the potential to open an entirely new window onto extinct paleobiologies. Without the fossil record, we would not be able to grasp the full range of variation in those biological mechanisms that have existed throughout evolution.

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Dental Variation in Megabats (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae): Tooth Metrics Correlate with Body Size and Tooth Proportions Reflect Phylogeny

Cited by 9 publications

References 121 publications

Dietary and body mass reconstruction of the Miocene neotropical batNotonycteris magdalenensis(Phyllostomidae) from La Venta, Colombia

Dietary and body mass reconstruction of the Miocene neotropical batNotonycteris magdalenensis(Phyllostomidae) from La Venta, Colombia

Dietary and body-mass reconstruction of the Miocene neotropical batNotonycteris magdalenensis(Phyllostomidae) from La Venta, Colombia

Keeping 21st Century Paleontology Grounded: Quantitative Genetic Analyses and Ancestral State Reconstruction Re-Emphasize the Essentiality of Fossils

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