Co-evolutionary dynamics of mammalian brain and body size.

ABSTRACT: Despite decades of comparative studies, puzzling aspects of the relationship between mammalian brain and body mass continue to defy satisfactory explanation. Here we show that several such aspects arise from routinely fitting log-linear models to the data: the correlated evolution of brain and body mass is in fact log-curvilinear. This simultaneously accounts for several phenomena for which diverse biological explanations have been proposed, notably variability in scaling coefficients across clades, low encephalization in larger species and the so-called taxon-level problem. Our model implies a need to revisit previous findings about relative brain mass. Accounting for the true scaling relationship, we document dramatically varying rates of relative brain mass evolution across the mammalia

SUBMITTER: Venditti C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11310075 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature