Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction to Carnivora
- 2 Phylogeny of the Carnivora and Carnivoramorpha, and the use of the fossil record to enhance understanding of evolutionary transformations
- 3 Phylogeny of the Viverridae and ‘Viverrid-like’ feliforms
- 4 Molecular and morphological evidence for Ailuridae and a review of its genera
- 5 The influence of character correlations on phylogenetic analyses: a case study of the carnivoran cranium
- 6 What's the difference? A multiphasic allometric analysis of fossil and living lions
- 7 Evolution in Carnivora: identifying a morphological bias
- 8 The biogeography of carnivore ecomorphology
- 9 Comparative ecomorphology and biogeography of Herpestidae and Viverridae (Carnivora) in Africa and Asia
- 10 Ecomorphological analysis of carnivore guilds in the Eocene through Miocene of Laurasia
- 11 Ecomorphology of North American Eocene carnivores: evidence for competition between Carnivorans and Creodonts
- 12 Morphometric analysis of cranial morphology in pinnipeds (Mammalia, Carnivora): convergence, ecology, ontogeny, and dimorphism
- 13 Tiptoeing through the trophics: geographic variation in carnivoran locomotor ecomorphology in relation to environment
- 14 Interpreting sabretooth cat (Carnivora; Felidae; Machairodontinae) postcranial morphology in light of scaling patterns in felids
- 15 Cranial mechanics of mammalian carnivores: recent advances using a finite element approach
- Index
- Plates
- References
7 - Evolution in Carnivora: identifying a morphological bias
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction to Carnivora
- 2 Phylogeny of the Carnivora and Carnivoramorpha, and the use of the fossil record to enhance understanding of evolutionary transformations
- 3 Phylogeny of the Viverridae and ‘Viverrid-like’ feliforms
- 4 Molecular and morphological evidence for Ailuridae and a review of its genera
- 5 The influence of character correlations on phylogenetic analyses: a case study of the carnivoran cranium
- 6 What's the difference? A multiphasic allometric analysis of fossil and living lions
- 7 Evolution in Carnivora: identifying a morphological bias
- 8 The biogeography of carnivore ecomorphology
- 9 Comparative ecomorphology and biogeography of Herpestidae and Viverridae (Carnivora) in Africa and Asia
- 10 Ecomorphological analysis of carnivore guilds in the Eocene through Miocene of Laurasia
- 11 Ecomorphology of North American Eocene carnivores: evidence for competition between Carnivorans and Creodonts
- 12 Morphometric analysis of cranial morphology in pinnipeds (Mammalia, Carnivora): convergence, ecology, ontogeny, and dimorphism
- 13 Tiptoeing through the trophics: geographic variation in carnivoran locomotor ecomorphology in relation to environment
- 14 Interpreting sabretooth cat (Carnivora; Felidae; Machairodontinae) postcranial morphology in light of scaling patterns in felids
- 15 Cranial mechanics of mammalian carnivores: recent advances using a finite element approach
- Index
- Plates
- References
Summary
Introduction
To understand the role of adaptation in generating macroevolutionary patterns, it is necessary to understand whether and in what ways specific features of the phenotype affect subsequent phenotypic diversification. This area has been much debated by both past and present workers, some of who considered whether certain morphologies might be ‘channelled’ (e.g. Gould, 1984; Emerson, 1988; Wagner, 1996) to appear once a specific starting morphology was attained. Less radically, a number of workers have suggested that possession of certain morphological character states may reduce the ability to attain certain other character states (Lauder, 1981; Maynard-Smith et al., 1985; Emerson, 1988; Futuyma and Moreno, 1988; Wagner, 1996; Werdelin, 1996; Alroy, 2000; Donoghue and Ree, 2000; Wagner and Schwenk, 2000; Wagner, 2001; Wagner and Mueller, 2002; Porter and Crandal, 2003; Van Valkenburgh et al., 2004; Polly, 2008), implying that, in some cases, taxa may be limited in their subsequent evolutionary trajectories. Both morphological channelling and a limitation on specific character states fall into the realm of a character change bias, where certain states are more likely to appear than others (Sanderson, 1993; Wagner, 1996; Donoghue and Ree, 2000; Wagner, 2001; Goldberg and Igic, 2008; Polly, 2008). Despite ongoing theoretical debate, however, there has been relatively little empirical exploration of the possibility of bias or directionality in morphological character change, and this area remains poorly understood (Arthur, 2001, 2004; Schluter et al., 2004).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Carnivoran EvolutionNew Views on Phylogeny, Form and Function, pp. 189 - 224Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
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