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Everson KM, Goodman SM, Olson LE. Speciation and gene flow in two sympatric small mammals from Madagascar, Microgale fotsifotsy and M. soricoides (Mammalia: Tenrecidae). Mol Ecol 2020; 29:1717-1729. [PMID: 32270561 DOI: 10.1111/mec.15433] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2019] [Revised: 03/13/2020] [Accepted: 03/27/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Madagascar's shrew tenrecs (Mammalia: Tenrecidae; Microgale, Nesogale) represent an excellent system for studying speciation. Most species are endemic to the island's eastern humid forests, a region renowned for high levels of biodiversity and a high rate of in situ diversification. We set out to understand the speciation dynamics in a clade of recently described taxa: Microgale fotsifotsy and M. soricoides, which have nearly identical distributions in the moist evergreen forest, and M. nasoloi, which occurs in the western dry deciduous forest. A phylogenetic analysis using mitochondrial DNA data recovered two distinct clades of M. fotsifotsy: a south clade that is sister to, and broadly sympatric with, M. soricoides, and a north clade that is sister to the dry-forest and distantly allopatric species M. nasoloi. To better understand this result, we analysed cranioskeletal measurements and performed demographic analyses using nuclear sequence data from ultraconserved elements. Nuclear data did not support a sister relationship between M. soricoides and the south clade of M. fotsifotsy but did demonstrate introgression between these clades, which probably explains the discordance between nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenies. Demographic analyses also revealed the absence of gene flow between the north and south clades of M. fotsifotsy. Morphometric data revealed several major differences between M. soricoides and M. fotsifotsy, as well as more subtle differences between the two clades of M. fotsifotsy. In light of these results, we treat the south clade of M. fotsifotsy as a new candidate species. Our findings demonstrate the utility of integrating multiple data types to understand complex speciation histories, and contribute to a growing body of evidence that species diversity on Madagascar is underestimated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathryn M Everson
- University of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks, AK, USA.,Biology Department, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA
| | - Steven M Goodman
- Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA.,Association Vahatra, Antananarivo, Madagascar
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Woodman N, Wilken AT. Comparative functional skeletal morphology among three genera of shrews: implications for the evolution of locomotor behavior in the Soricinae (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae). J Mammal 2019. [DOI: 10.1093/jmammal/gyz098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstract
The clade comprising the soricid tribes Blarinellini (Blarinella) and Blarinini (Blarina and Cryptotis) is notable within the Soricidae (Eulipotyphla) for the large proportion of reportedly semifossorial species. To better define locomotor modes among species in these two tribes, we quantified purported locomotor adaptations by calculating 23 functional indices from postcranial measurements obtained from museum specimens of Blarina and Blarinella and published measurements for 16 species of Cryptotis. We then analyzed relative ambulatory–fossorial function of each species using principal component analyses and mean percentile rank (MPR) analysis of the indices. Species within the Blarinellini–Blarinini clade exhibit a graded series of morphologies with four primary functional groupings that we classified as “ambulatory,” “intermediate,” “semifossorial,” and “fossorial.” To obtain a preliminary overview of evolution of locomotor modes in this group, we mapped MPRs on a composite phylogeny and examined the resulting patterns. That analysis revealed that the most recent common ancestor of the Blarinellini–Blarinini clade most likely had an intermediate or semifossorial locomotor morphology. Individual subclades subsequently evolved either more ambulatory or more fossorial morphologies. Hence, evolution of locomotor traits within this clade is complex. Multiple shifts in locomotor mode likely occurred, and no single directional tendency is apparent either among the major modes or in levels of complexity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Neal Woodman
- USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Alec T Wilken
- Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
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Woodman N, Wilken AT, Ikram S. See how they ran: morphological and functional aspects of skeletons from ancient Egyptian shrew mummies (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae: Crocidurinae). J Mammal 2019. [DOI: 10.1093/jmammal/gyz091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstract
Animals served important roles in the religious cults that proliferated during the Late (ca. 747–332 BCE) and Greco-Roman Periods (332 BCE–CE 337) of ancient Egypt. One result was the interment of animal mummies in specialized necropolises distributed throughout the country. Excavation of a rock-tomb that was re-used during the Ptolemaic Period (ca. 309–30 BCE) for the interment of animal mummies at the Djehuty Site (TT 11–12) near Luxor, Egypt, was carried out in early 2018 by a Spanish–Egyptian team sponsored by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid. The tomb burned sometime after deposition of the mummies, leaving behind abundant disassociated skeletal remains, primarily of avians, but also including two species of shrews (Soricidae): Crocidura olivieri and C. religiosa. To investigate possible intraspecific variation in morphology and locomotor function in these two species during the last two millennia, we measured morphological features of individual postcranial bones from the two archaeological samples and calculated indices that have been used to assess locomotor function. We compared the measurements to those from modern C. olivieri, C. religiosa, and C. suaveolens using principal components analysis, and we compared locomotor indices to those we calculated for the three modern species of Crocidura and to those from nine species of myosoricine shrews. Osteological features of the postcranial skeleton of conspecific Ptolemaic and modern samples of C. olivieri and C. religiosa are generally similar in character and proportion, and, skeletally, these shrews and modern C. suaveolens are consistent with soricids having a primarily ambulatory locomotor mode. One exception is the deltopectoral crest of the humerus, which appears to be longer in modern C. religiosa. Despite general conservation of form and function, Ptolemaic C. olivieri had larger body size than modern Egyptian populations and were more similar in size to modern C. olivieri nyansae from Kenya than to modern C. olivieri olivieri from Egypt.
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Affiliation(s)
- Neal Woodman
- USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Alec T Wilken
- Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
| | - Salima Ikram
- Department of Sociology, Egyptology, and Anthropology, American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt
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Nations JA, Heaney LR, Demos TC, Achmadi AS, Rowe KC, Esselstyn JA. A simple skeletal measurement effectively predicts climbing behaviour in a diverse clade of small mammals. Biol J Linn Soc Lond 2019. [DOI: 10.1093/biolinnean/blz085] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022]
Abstract
AbstractArboreal locomotion allows access to above-ground resources and might have fostered the diversification of mammals. Nevertheless, simple morphological measurements that consistently correlate with arboreality remain indefinable. As such, the climbing habits of many species of mammals, living and extinct, remain speculative. We collected quantitative data on the climbing tendencies of 20 species of murine rodents, an ecologically and morphologically diverse clade. We leveraged Bayesian phylogenetic mixed models (BPMMs), incorporating intraspecific variation and phylogenetic uncertainty, to determine which, if any, traits (17 skeletal indices) predict climbing frequency. We used ordinal BPMMs to test the ability of the indices to place 48 murine species that lack quantitative climbing data into three qualitative locomotor categories (terrestrial, general and arboreal). Only two indices (both measures of relative digit length) accurately predict locomotor styles, with manus digit length showing the best fit. Manus digit length has low phylogenetic signal, is largely explained by locomotor ecology and might effectively predict locomotion across a multitude of small mammals, including extinct species. Surprisingly, relative tail length, a common proxy for locomotion, was a poor predictor of climbing. In general, detailed, quantitative natural history data, such as those presented here, are needed to enhance our understanding of the evolutionary and ecological success of clades.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan A Nations
- Museum of Natural Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
| | | | | | - Anang S Achmadi
- Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, Research Centre for Biology, Cibinong, Jawa Barat, Indonesia
| | - Kevin C Rowe
- Sciences Department, Museum Victoria, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Jacob A Esselstyn
- Museum of Natural Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
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McDonough MM, Parker LD, Rotzel McInerney N, Campana MG, Maldonado JE. Performance of commonly requested destructive museum samples for mammalian genomic studies. J Mammal 2018. [DOI: 10.1093/jmammal/gyy080] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Molly M McDonough
- Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
- Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoo, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Lillian D Parker
- Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoo, Washington, DC, USA
- Environmental Science and Policy Department, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
| | - Nancy Rotzel McInerney
- Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoo, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Michael G Campana
- Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoo, Washington, DC, USA
- Environmental Science and Policy Department, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
| | - Jesús E Maldonado
- Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoo, Washington, DC, USA
- Environmental Science and Policy Department, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
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Woodman N, Timm RM. A new species of small-eared shrew in the Cryptotis thomasi species group from Costa Rica (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Soricidae). MAMMAL RES 2016. [DOI: 10.1007/s13364-016-0289-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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