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Variability, selection, and constraints: development and evolution in viverravid (Carnivora, Mammalia) molar morphology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

P. David Polly*
Affiliation:
Department of Anatomy, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, London. E-mail: d.polly@qmw.ac.uk

Abstract

Developmental constraints presumably operate by influencing patterns of variability: when development causes some features to vary more than others and when the level of variability is correlated with evolutionary change, then development can be said to constrain evolution. This idea was tested by examining the relationship between tooth variation and three other factors: developmental processes, tooth function, and evolutionary change. Data came from two lineages of viverravid carnivorans (Viverravidae, Carnivora) from the Paleogene of North America. Variability in cusp position was significantly correlated with position in the developmental cascade, with the amount of intercusp growth (when growth is relatively greater in some cusps than others), and with amount of evolutionary change. This indicates that tooth development exerts a local constraint on phenotypic variability and on the evolutionary response to functional selection, but comparative data suggest that the developmental constraint itself may evolve. Intense directional or stabilizing selection may modify the developmental cascade so that the constraint is either removed or modified to permit new evolutionary patterns. Thus development does not constrain evolution in an absolute sense, but rather introduces modifiable patterns of covariance among crown features. Both development and function seem to play important, intertwined roles in coordinating evolutionary change in mammalian molars.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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