The role of dietary competition in the origination and early diversification of North American euprimates.

ABSTRACT: The conditions under which early euprimates (adapids and omomyids) originated and evolved is an area of longstanding debate. The leading hypotheses of euprimate origins promulgate diet as a core component of the early evolution of this group, despite the role of dietary competition in euprimate originations never being tested directly. This study compared three competition models (non-competition, competitive displacement, competitive coexistence) with observed patterns of dietary niche overlap, reconstructed from three-dimensional molar morphology, at the time of the euprimate radiation in North America (at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary). Overlap of reconstructed multidimensional dietary niches between euprimates and members of their guild were analysed using a modified MANOVA to establis

SUBMITTER: Stroik LK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6111171 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature