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
2 - Phylogeny of the Carnivora and Carnivoramorpha, and the use of the fossil record to enhance understanding of evolutionary transformations
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
Phylogeny of the Carnivora – molecules, fossils, and total evidence
Fossil taxa are inherently at a disadvantage in resolving phylogenetic relationships, relative to living forms, as soft anatomy, DNA, physiology, and most life-history attributes are not readily available for the vast majority of these taxa, other than some fascinating new sequences available for Pleistocene fossil taxa (e.g. Smilodon, Homotherium, Miracinonyx, Ursus spelaeus, etc.; Loreille et al., 2001; Barnett et al., 2005). Nevertheless, fossil data possess several key advantages in phylogenetic analyses, including the ability to break-up ‘long branches’ in phylogenies, where the divergence between modern-day clades occurred deep in geological time. Fossils preserve morphologies that can become obscured along these long branches, and also provide temporal context for the evolution of living clades that may be crucial for accurately reconstructing ancestral conditions and partitioning synapomorphic versus homoplasious resemblances among modern-day taxa. Some workers feel that molecular data are inherently superior for reconstructing phylogeny than morphological characters (see for example: Scotland et al., 2003; but see Jenner, 2004), and as a consequence, phylogenies for many clades, particularly those that are not well represented in the fossil record, often are based solely on molecular sequence data. Within Carnivora, for example, the most recent studies reconstructing phylogenetic relationships among living taxa have relied principally on molecular sequences (e.g. Flynn et al., 2000, 2005).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Carnivoran EvolutionNew Views on Phylogeny, Form and Function, pp. 25 - 63Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
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