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opencc-by-4.0Aug 2020View details →

No evidence of an extinction of experience or emotional disconnect from nature in urban Singapore

The dataset used in the paper titled "No evidence of an extinction of experience or emotional disconnect from nature in urban Singapore" published in the journal People and Nature in 2020.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →

Data from: Origination, extinction, invasion, and extirpation components of the brachiopod latitudinal biodiversity gradient through the Phanerozoic Eon

The geographic distribution of brachiopod genus occurrences over the Phanerozoic shows that secular declines in origination and extinction rates were paralleled by increases in invasion and extirpation rates. Origination and extinction rates declined in two phases, the first from the Cambrian to latest Permian Periods and the second from the latest Permian Period to the present, which were accompanied by concomitant increases in invasion and extirpation rates. In addition to the temporal correlation, an inverse correlation was also weakly evident among time-averaged latitudinal gradients of rates. Compared with faunas at higher latitudes, low-latitude faunas experienced higher origination and extinction rates, and lower invasion and extirpation rates. We suggest that progressive increases in migration ability lowered origination and extinction rates because species that were better equipped to track a preferred habitat, for example, by the ability to disperse larvae over large distances, were less likely to evolve or become extinct in response to local environmental changes. The two phases were separated by the end-Permian mass extinction, which reset to high levels the origination and extinction rates of a taxonomically and ecologically altered global brachiopod fauna. Our data also allow us to quantify the relative contributions of origination, extinction, invasion, and extirpation to regional diversity (quantified as 10° latitudinal zones) more generally. Overall, invasion and extirpation explained slightly more variation in diversity than in situ origination and extinction. The four variables usually occurred in combinations that maintained rather than altered the shape of the latitudinal diversity gradient. For most of the Phanerozoic Eon, the gradient was not the product of continuous renewal, but rather existed as a holdover from a previous interval.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

Data from: Phantoms of the forest: legacy risk effects of a regionally extinct large carnivore

The increased abundance of large carnivores in Europe is a conservation success, but the impact on the behavior and population dynamics of prey species is generally unknown. In Europe, the recolonization of large carnivores often occurs in areas where humans have greatly modified the landscape through forestry or agriculture. Currently, we poorly understand the effects of recolonizing large carnivores on extant prey species in anthropogenic landscapes. Here, we investigated if ungulate prey species showed innate responses to the scent of a regionally exterminated but native large carnivore, and whether the responses were affected by human-induced habitat openness. We experimentally introduced brown bear Ursus arctos scent to artificial feeding sites and used camera traps to document the responses of three sympatric ungulate species. In addition to controls without scent, reindeer scent Rangifer tarandus was used as a noncarnivore, novel control scent. Fallow deer Dama dama strongly avoided areas with bear scent. In the presence of bear scent, all ungulate species generally used open sites more than closed sites, whereas the opposite was observed at sites with reindeer scent or without scent. The opening of forest habitat by human practices, such as forestry and agriculture, creates a larger gradient in habitat openness than available in relatively unaffected closed forest systems, which may create opportunities for prey to alter their habitat selection and reduce predation risk in human-modified systems that do not exist in more natural forest systems. Increased knowledge about antipredator responses in areas subjected to anthropogenic change is important because these responses may affect prey population dynamics, lower trophic levels, and attitudes toward large carnivores. These aspects may be of particular relevance in the light of the increasing wildlife populations across much of Europe.

opencc-zeroDec 2014View details →

Data from: Geographic ranges of genera and their constituent species: structure, evolutionary dynamics, and extinction resistance

We explore the relationships among the geographic ranges of genera, the ranges and positions of their constituent species, and the number of species they contain, considering variation among coeval genera and changes within genera over time. Measuring range size as the maximal distance, or extent, between occurrences within a taxon, we find that the range of the most widespread species is a good predictor of the range of the genus, and that the number of species is a better predictor still. This analysis is complicated by a forced correlation: the range of a genus must be at least as large as that of each of its constituent species. We therefore focus on a second measure of range, the mean squared distance, or dispersion, of occurrences from the geographic centroid, which, by analogy to the analysis of variance, allows the total dispersion of a genus to be compared to the mean within-species dispersion and the dispersion among species centroids. We find that among-species dispersion is the principal determinant of genus dispersion. Within-species dispersion also plays a major role. The role of species richness is relatively small. Our results are not artifacts of temporal variation in the geographic breadth of sampled data. The relationship between changes in genus dispersion and changes in within- and among-species dispersion shows a symmetry, being similar in cases when the genus range is expanding and when it is contracting. We also show that genera with greater dispersion have greater extinction resistance, but that within- and among-species dispersion are not demonstrable predictors of survival once the dispersion of the genus is accounted for. Thus it is the range of the genus, rather than how it is attained, that is most relevant to its fate. Species richness is also a clear predictor of survival, beyond its effects on geographic range.

opencc-zeroDec 2017View details →

Data from: Effects of mass extinction and recovery dynamics on long-term evolutionary trends: a morphological study of Strophomenida (Brachiopoda) across the Late Ordovician mass extinction

Mass extinctions affect the history of life by decimating existing diversity and ecological structure and creating new evolutionary and ecological pathways. Both the loss of diversity during these events and the rebound in diversity following extinction had a profound effect on Phanerozoic evolutionary trends. Phylogenetic trees can be used to robustly assess the evolutionary implications of extinction and origination. We examine both extinction and origination during the Late Ordovician mass extinction. This mass extinction was the second largest in terms of taxonomic loss but did not appear to radically alter Paleozoic marine assemblages. We focus on the brachiopod order Strophomenida, whose evolutionary relationships have been recently revised, to explore the disconnect between the processes that drive taxonomic loss and those that restructure ecological communities. A possible explanation for this disconnect is if extinction and origination were random with respect to morphology. We define morphospace using principal coordinate analysis (PCO) of character data from 61 Ordovician-Devonian taxa and their 45 ancestral nodes, defined by a most parsimonius reconstruction in Mesquite. A bootstrap of the centroid of PCO values indicates that genera were randomly removed from morphospace by the Late Ordovician mass extinction, and new Silurian genera were clustered within a smaller previously unoccupied region of morphospace. Diversification remained morphologically constrained throughout the Silurian and into the Devonian. This suggests that the recovery from the Late Ordovician mass extinction resulted in a long-term shift in strophomenide evolution. More broadly, recovery intervals may hold clues to understanding the evolutionary impact of mass extinctions.

opencc-zeroDec 2014View details →

Data from: Eutherian morphological disparity across the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

In the aftermaths of mass extinction events, during radiations of clades, and in several other evolutionary scenarios, there is often a decoupling of taxonomic diversity and morphological disparity. The placental mammal radiation after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction is one of the archetypal adaptive radiations, but the change in morphological disparity of the entire skeleton has never been quantified across this important boundary. We reconstruct ancestral morphologies of 680 discrete morphological characters onto dated phylogenies of 177 mostly Cretaceous and Palaeogene eutherians (placental mammals and their stem relatives). Using a new approach to incorporate morphologies representing ghost lineages, we assess three measures of morphological disparity (sum of ranges, sum of variances and mean pairwise dissimilarity) across stage-level time bins within the Cretaceous and Palaeogene. We find that the range-based metric suggests that eutherian disparity increased immediately after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, while both variance-based metrics declined from the Campanian to the Maastrichtian, but showed no change in disparity from the Maastrichtian to the Puercan – the first North American Land Mammal Age of the Paleocene. Increases in variance-based metrics lag behind the range-based metric and per-lineage accumulation rate, suggesting that the response of mammals to the Cretaceous–Palaeogene event was characterized by an early radiation that increased overall morphospace occupation, followed later by specialization that resulted in increased dissimilarity.

opencc-zeroDec 2012View details →

Data from: Ontogenetic sequence reconstruction and sequence polymorphism in extinct taxa: an example using early tetrapods (Tetrapoda: Lepospondyli)

Ontogenetic sequence reconstruction is challenging particularly for extinct taxa because of when, where, and how fossils preserve. Different methods of reconstruction exist, but the effects of preservational bias, the applicability of size-independent methods, and the prevalence of sequence polymorphism (intraspecific variation) remain unexplored for paleontological data. Here I compare five different methods of ontogenetic sequence reconstruction and their effects on the detection of sequence polymorphism, using a large collection of the extinct vertebrates Microbrachis pelikani and Hyloplesion longicostatum. The postcranial ossification sequences presented here for those taxa are the first examples known for extinct lepospondyls. Sequences were reconstructed according to skull length, trunk length, increasing number of ontogenetic events, majority-rule consensus, and Ontogenetic Sequence Analysis (OSA). Results generally were in agreement, demonstrating that paleontological data may be used to robustly reconstruct developmental patterns. When reconstructing sequences based on fossils, size-based methods and OSA are more objective and less dependent on preservational bias than other techniques. Apart from the other methods, OSA also allows for statistical analysis of observed and predicted polymorphism. However, OSA requires a large sample size to yield meaningful results, and size-based methods are justified in paleontological studies when sample size is limited by poor preservation. Different methods of reconstruction detected different patterns of sequence polymorphism, although across all methods the magnitude of sequence variation for M. pelikani and H. longicostatum (1.3−3.4%) was within the lower range of values reported for extant vertebrates. Compared with other extinct and extant tetrapods, all sequence reconstruction methods consistently showed that M. pelikani and H. longicostatum exhibit advanced ossification of the pubis and delayed ossification of the scapula. However, the postcranial ossification sequences of these two taxa largely are congruent with those of other tetrapods, suggesting an underlying conservative ancestral pattern that evolved early in tetrapod history.

opencc-zeroJul 2019View details →

Data from: Colonization and extinction dynamics among the plant species at tree bases in Paris (France)

1. In cities, trees growing along streets could play an important ecological role for spontaneous plants that grow at their bases. For example, these trees could represent corridors that allow species to move in the urban matrix by potentially connecting large green spaces (e.g., parks, gardens, etc.) We considered sets of urban trees in 15 streets as metapopulations for 15 plant species. Our objective was to determine the factors influencing the dynamics of colonization and extinction of populations based on the distance of the streets from green spaces and the biological traits of each species. 2. The species in 1,324 tree bases of the Bercy district of Paris were surveyed annually from 2009 to 2015. For each species and each street, we used SPOMSIM software to identify the best-fit metapopulation model: the propagule rain model (PRM), Levins model (LM), and the PRM and LM with a fixed extinction or a rescue effect. 3. The results demonstrated that the species more often conformed to the PRM in streets near green spaces, which suggested that green spaces could act as the sources for the populations in those streets. Species with seeds with long-term persistence more often conformed to the PRM, indicating that a soil seed bank helps species invade entire streets. Finally, a higher percentage of species with a short height conformed to models with a rescue effect, which indicated that those species resisted the effects of weeding by the city technical services more often than taller species. 4. Synthesis and applications. This study showed how the biological traits of species and the geography of the district determine the dynamics of the plants in the streets, and the results may provide important information for biodiversity management in cities.

opencc-zeroDec 2017View details →

Data from: Genetic diversity and drivers of dwarfism in extinct island emu populations

Australia's iconic emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae novaehollandiae) is the only living representative of its genus, but fossil evidence and reports from early European explorers suggest that three island forms (at least two of which were dwarfs) became extinct during the 19th century. While one of these - the King Island emu - has been found to be conspecific with Australian mainland emus, little is known about how the other two forms - Kangaroo Island and Tasmanian emus - relate to the others, or even the size of Tasmanian emus. We present a comprehensive genetic and morphological analysis of Dromaius diversity, including data from one of the few definitively genuine Tasmanian emu specimens known. Our genetic analyses suggest that all the island populations represent sub-populations of mainland D. novaehollandiae. Further, the size of island emus and those on the mainland appears to scale linearly with island size but not time since isolation, suggesting that island size—and presumably concomitant limitations on resource availability—may be a more important driver of dwarfism in island emus, though its precise contribution to emu dwarfism remains to be confirmed.

Fig. 103 in An Anatomical And Phylogenetic Study Of The Osteology Of The Petrosal Of Extant And Extinct Artiodactylans (Mammalia) And Relatives

Fig. 103. Ventrolateral (tympanic) views of left petrosals of †Dorudon atrox (UM 94812)

Fig. 95 in An Anatomical And Phylogenetic Study Of The Osteology Of The Petrosal Of Extant And Extinct Artiodactylans (Mammalia) And Relatives

Fig. 95. Dorsomedial (cerebellar) views of left petrosal of Ziphius cavirostris (AMNH-M 70378)

Fig. 60 in An Anatomical And Phylogenetic Study Of The Osteology Of The Petrosal Of Extant And Extinct Artiodactylans (Mammalia) And Relatives

Fig. 60. Ventrolateral (tympanic) views of left petrosal of Babyrousa babyrussa (AMNH-M 2238)

Fig. 50 in An Anatomical And Phylogenetic Study Of The Osteology Of The Petrosal Of Extant And Extinct Artiodactylans (Mammalia) And Relatives

Fig. 50. Ventrolateral (tympanic) views of left petrosal of Potamochoerus porcus (AMNH-M 238329)

Fig. 78 in An Anatomical And Phylogenetic Study Of The Osteology Of The Petrosal Of Extant And Extinct Artiodactylans (Mammalia) And Relatives

Fig. 78. Dorsomedial (cerebellar) views of left petrosal of Balaenoptera acutorostrata (USNM-M

Fig. 40 in An Anatomical And Phylogenetic Study Of The Osteology Of The Petrosal Of Extant And Extinct Artiodactylans (Mammalia) And Relatives

Fig. 40. Ventrolateral (tympanic) views of left petrosal of †Protoceras celer (AMNH-VP 645)

Fig. 11 in An Anatomical And Phylogenetic Study Of The Osteology Of The Petrosal Of Extant And Extinct Artiodactylans (Mammalia) And Relatives

Fig. 11. Ventrolateral (tympanic) views of left petrosal of †Leptomeryx sp. (AMNH-VP 53786)

Fig. 14 in An Anatomical And Phylogenetic Study Of The Osteology Of The Petrosal Of Extant And Extinct Artiodactylans (Mammalia) And Relatives

Fig. 14. Dorsomedial (cerebellar) views of left petrosal of Antilocapra americana (UC-MVZ 96100)