{"database":"biostudies-literature","file_versions":[],"scores":null,"additional":{"submitter":["Charles-Dominique T"],"funding":["British Pharmacological Society","Said Foundation","Cambridge Overseas Trusts","Medical Research Council","Sidney Sussex College"],"pagination":["E5572-9"],"full_dataset_link":["https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC5035896"],"repository":["biostudies-literature"],"omics_type":["Unknown"],"volume":["113(38)"],"pubmed_abstract":["Savannas first began to spread across Africa during the Miocene. A major hypothesis for explaining this vegetation change is the increase in C4 grasses, promoting fire. We investigated whether mammals could also have contributed to savanna expansion by using spinescence as a marker of mammal herbivory. Looking at the present distribution of 1,852 tree species, we established that spinescence is mainly associated with two functional types of mammals: large browsers and medium-sized mixed feeders. Using a dated phylogeny for the same tree species, we found that spinescence evolved at least 55 times. The diversification of spiny plants occurred long after the evolution of Afrotherian proboscideans and hyracoids. However, it is remarkably congruent with diversification of bovids, the lineage i"],"journal":["Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America"],"pubmed_title":["Spiny plants, mammal browsers, and the origin of African savannas."],"pmcid":["PMC5035896"],"funding_grant_id":["AJ Clarke Studentship","SSC","COT","Said","RG64071"],"pubmed_authors":["Bezeng BS","Maurin O","Bond WJ","Kabongo RM","Muasya AM","van der Bank M","Davies TJ","Hempson GP","Charles-Dominique T","Daru BH"],"additional_accession":[]},"is_claimable":false,"name":"Spiny plants, mammal browsers, and the origin of African savannas.","description":"Savannas first began to spread across Africa during the Miocene. A major hypothesis for explaining this vegetation change is the increase in C4 grasses, promoting fire. We investigated whether mammals could also have contributed to savanna expansion by using spinescence as a marker of mammal herbivory. Looking at the present distribution of 1,852 tree species, we established that spinescence is mainly associated with two functional types of mammals: large browsers and medium-sized mixed feeders. Using a dated phylogeny for the same tree species, we found that spinescence evolved at least 55 times. The diversification of spiny plants occurred long after the evolution of Afrotherian proboscideans and hyracoids. However, it is remarkably congruent with diversification of bovids, the lineage i","dates":{"release":"2016-01-01T00:00:00Z","publication":"2016 Sep","modification":"2026-05-05T05:44:22.992Z","creation":"2019-03-27T02:25:04Z"},"accession":"S-EPMC5035896","cross_references":{"pubmed":["27601649"],"doi":["10.1073/pnas.1607493113"]}}