The global Cenozoic diversification process of tortoises (Testudinidae)

Abstract

Great environmental changes may affect the survival capability of a variety of organisms. Testudinidae is the most diverse family of terrestrial chelonians within the whole order (Testudines). Interestingly, however, the number of extinct species overcome the extant ones. In order to understand better how the diversification process of this family occurred, this work used the PyRate software, which estimates both the preservation and diversification processes in a continuous time interval. For such, the software used a list of fossil occurrences obtained from the Paleobiology Database whereas the extant species list was obtained from Catalogue of Life. This way, the software was able to infer the probability of the ancestral clade having resulted in these species during its evolutionary history. The analyses generated graphs containing the diversification, extinction and speciation curves and their respective associated 95% credibility intervals. A great rise in the extinction rate was observed starting 6 million years ago. This rise is believed to be related to the drop of atmospheric CO2 all over the globe at the end of the Miocene, about 8–6 million years ago. This event led to a turnover of the vegetation composition on the warmer areas of the planet, with plants that used C3 metabolism giving way to C4 plants. In terms of landscape, grasses and herbal vegetation, such as savannas, started dominating. As for other animal groups, those herbivores with grazing habits were more successful than those used to only browsing or that did not have enough flexibility of choice.