Rates and modes of body size evolution in early carnivores and herbivores: a case study from Captorhinidae.

ABSTRACT: Body size is an extremely important characteristic, impacting on a variety of ecological and life-history traits. It is therefore important to understand the factors which may affect its evolution, and diet has attracted much interest in this context. A recent study which examined the evolution of the earliest terrestrial herbivores in the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian concluded that in the four herbivorous clades examined there was a trend towards increased body size, and that this increase was more substantial than that observed in closely related carnivorous clades. However, this hypothesis was not based on quantitative examination, and phylogenetic comparative methods provide a more robust means of testing such hypotheses. Here, the evolution of body size within different dietar

SUBMITTER: Brocklehurst N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4715457 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature