Abstract
Previous reports have shown an effect of historical legacy on patterns of growth of the mammal skull. The knowledge of developmental patterns of the marsupial skull are fundamental to understanding the evolution of skull form function in this clade. The allometric patterns of skull growth are described and discussed, experienced on functional parts of the skull in representatives of all major living marsupial groups. The hypothesis that ontogenetic similarity is correlated with phylogeny in New and Old World marsupials, in a data set of 61 species, is tested. Ontogenetic trajectories onto the marsupial phylogeny are mapped, treating the trajectories as composite, continuously varying characters. Didelphids, dasyurids, and diprotodontians differed widely in the magnitude of skull allometry across species. Splanchnocranial components exhibited all possible patterns of interspecific variation, whereas mandibular variables were predominantly allometrically positive or isometric, and neurocranial components were predominantly allometrically negative. The ontogenetic trajectories deviated with respect to that of reconstructed common ancestors in varying degree. Didelphids inherited an ancestral constellation of allometry coefficients without change and retained much of it throughout their lineage history, but Dasyuromorphia and Diprotodontia exhibited many changes from the ancestral allometric plan on each group, evolving in highly modified patterns with respect to their ancestral plan.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Técnicas of Argentina (CONICET); the project Z-0082-13 of the Fundación Miguel Lillo; the projects PICT2008-1798, PICT2012-1583, and PICT 2015-2389 of the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica, Argentina (ANPCyT); and the National Research Foundation of South Africa.
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Flores, D.A., Abdala, F., Giannini, N.P. (2022). Postweaning Skull Growth in Living American and Australasian Marsupials: Allometry and Evolution. In: Cáceres, N.C., Dickman, C.R. (eds) American and Australasian Marsupials. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88800-8_6-1
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