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Size evolution of the lower incisor of Microtia, a genus of endemic murine rodents from the late Neogene of Gargano, southern Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Virginie Millien  and
Jean-Jacques Jaeger
Virginie Millien
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106
Jean-Jacques Jaeger
Affiliation:
Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, Université Montpellier II, cc 64 place Eugène Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier cedex 5, France
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Abstract

The Neogene paleoisland from the area of Gargano, Italy, has yielded numerous fossil vertebrates, some of them showing extraordinary morphological peculiarities due to island evolution. Among them, Microtia (Freudenthal 1976) is the dominant rodent genus in the Gargano palaeofauna and is represented by at least three evolutionary lineages. The incisors are used to describe the size evolution in these lineages, and we come to the conclusion that these lineages did not follow the same evolutionary trend: two of them evolve toward larger size, while the third one shows a slight decrease in size. In addition, we describe the evolution of the curvature of the lower incisor, compared with that of body-size. The evolution of Microtia is characterized by a specialization for burrowing, which may be accompanied by either an increase or a decrease in size. Finally, we propose that the evolutionary change among these three sympatric lineages allowed Microtia to minimize competition between species, by avoiding size overlaps.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , Spring 2001 , pp. 379 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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References

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