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Can quantum leaps in body size be recognized among mammalian species?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

V. Louise Roth
V. Louise Roth*
Affiliation:
Bingham Laboratory, Biology Department, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
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Abstract

Regular discontinuities in the distributions of morphological measurements may conceivably reveal tempos in evolution. Recently L⊘vtrup et al. (1974) attributed apparent stepwise interspecific variation in mammalian and avian body size to an evolutionary cause: according to these workers, the pattern may reflect punctuation in phylogeny caused by speciation. The nature and appropriate use of data, the choice of techniques for detecting patterns, and the implications of the results of such tests are discussed here in the light of this Swedish study. A technique, which may be used to verify patterns in rose diagrams or a range of ostensibly rhythmic phenomena, is described and applied to new data. Clustering is found at intervals other than those predicted by L⊘vtrup et al., but there is no consistent trend in the values of these interval lengths among data sets.

Type
Research Article
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , Summer 1979 , pp. 318 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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