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I provide the first comprehensive study on body size evolution of extinct and living insular bovids, exploring the causal biotic and abiotic selective factors for observed patterns.

Islands worldwide.

I assembled data on the geographic characteristics of 13 focal islands (area, isolation, latitude, net primary productivity) and on the ecological and morphological characteristics of 32 insular bovid taxa (number of predators and competitors, richness of large mammals, body mass of mainland relatives). I used linear regressions and machine learning methods (regression trees and random forest analyses) to examine the hypothesized contextual importance of these factors in explaining variation in the body size of island bovids. I also calculated evolutionary rates of body size divergence of focal taxa in order to assess whether this phenomenon is influenced by time in isolation.

The results …