Publication Date:
2012-03-01
Description:
Body size plays a critical role in mammalian ecology and physiology. Previous research has shown that many mammals became smaller during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), but the timing and magnitude of that change relative to climate change have been unclear. A high-resolution record of continental climate and equid body size change shows a directional size decrease of ~30% over the first ~130,000 years of the PETM, followed by a ~76% increase in the recovery phase of the PETM. These size changes are negatively correlated with temperature inferred from oxygen isotopes in mammal teeth and were probably driven by shifts in temperature and possibly high atmospheric CO(2) concentrations. These findings could be important for understanding mammalian evolutionary responses to future global warming.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Secord, Ross -- Bloch, Jonathan I -- Chester, Stephen G B -- Boyer, Doug M -- Wood, Aaron R -- Wing, Scott L -- Kraus, Mary J -- McInerney, Francesca A -- Krigbaum, John -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 Feb 24;335(6071):959-62. doi: 10.1126/science.1213859.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA. rsecord2@unl.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22363006" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Atmosphere
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Body Size
;
Carbon Dioxide/analysis
;
*Climate Change
;
Equidae/*anatomy & histology
;
*Fossils
;
Global Warming
;
Horses/*anatomy & histology
;
Humidity
;
Oxygen Isotopes/analysis
;
Temperature
;
Wyoming
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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