Measurement theory and paleobiology

KL Voje, JG Saulsbury, J Starrfelt, DV Latorre… - Trends in Ecology & …, 2023 - cell.com
Measurement theory, a branch of applied mathematics, offers guiding principles for
extracting meaning from empirical observations and is applicable to any science involving …

[HTML][HTML] Bird clades with less complex appendicular skeletons tend to have higher species richness

A Brinkworth, E Green, Y Li, J Oyston, M Ruta… - Nature …, 2023 - nature.com
Species richness is strikingly uneven across taxonomic groups at all hierarchical levels, but
the reasons for this heterogeneity are poorly understood. It is well established that …

Risk of extinction increases towards higher elevations across the world's amphibians

J Guirguis, LEB Goodyear, C Finn… - Global Ecology and …, 2023 - Wiley Online Library
Aim Life in mountains is associated with multiple features that increase the risk of
demographic collapses in populations–small geographic ranges, short breeding seasons …

[HTML][HTML] Accelerated body size evolution in upland environments is correlated with recent speciation in South American freshwater fishes

FO Cerezer, CS Dambros, MTP Coelho… - Nature …, 2023 - nature.com
Speciation rates vary greatly among taxa and regions and are shaped by both biotic and
abiotic factors. However, the relative importance and interactions of these factors are not …

So volcanoes created the dinosaurs? A quantitative characterization of the early evolution of terrestrial Pan-Aves

MC Langer, PL Godoy - Frontiers in Earth Science, 2022 - frontiersin.org
The early Mesozoic is marked by several global-scale environmental events, including the
emplacement of large igneous provinces, such as the Siberian Traps, Wrangellia, and …

Low morphological disparity and decelerated rate of limb size evolution close to the origin of birds

M Wang, Z Zhou - Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2023 - nature.com
The origin of birds from theropod dinosaurs involves many changes in musculoskeletal
anatomy and epidermal structures, including multiple instances of convergence and …

Is it all about elephants? Explaining prey size decline in the Paleolithic Southern Levant

J Dembitzer, R Barkai, M Ben-Dor, S Meiri - Quaternary Science Reviews, 2022 - Elsevier
Recently we (Dembitzer et al., 2022) found that the weighted mean body mass of faunal
assemblages steadily declined over the last 1.5 million years of the Paleolithic Southern …

The role of climate on the emergence of giant caimanines (Crocodylia, Alligatoroidea) from the Miocene western Amazonian region

ALS Paiva, PL Godoy, EM Dunne, A Farnsworth… - Palaeogeography …, 2024 - Elsevier
Extant caimanines include the six modern species of caimans, which occur predominantly in
South and Central America and are mostly medium-sized crocodylians. Nevertheless, the …

A Comparative Study of Body Size Evolution in Moths: Evidence of Correlated Evolution with Feeding and Phenology-Related Traits

SIA Foerster, JT Clarke, E Õunap… - Journal of …, 2024 - academic.oup.com
Interspecific variation in body size is one of the most popular topics in comparative studies.
Despite recent advances, little is still known about the patterns and processes behind the …

Rapid adaptation of cellular metabolic rate to the MicroRNA complements of mammals and its relevance to the evolution of endothermy

B Fromm, T Sorger - Iscience, 2024 - cell.com
The metabolic efficiency of mammalian cells depends on the attenuation of intrinsic
translation noise by microRNAs. We devised a metric of cellular metabolic rate (cMR) …