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Title (en)
Insular giant leporid matured later than predicted by scaling
Language
English
Description (en)
The island syndrome describes morphological, behavioral, and life history traits that evolve in parallel in endemic insular organisms. A basic axiom of the island syndrome is that insular endemics slow down their pace of life. Although this is already confirmed for insular dwarfs, a slow life history in giants may not be adaptive, but merely a consequence of increasing body size. We tested this question in the fossil insular giant leporid Nuralagus rex. Using bone histology, we constructed both a continental extant taxon model derived from experimentally fluorochrome-labeled Lepus europaeus to calibrate life history events, and a growth model for the insular taxon. N. rex grew extremely slowly and delayed maturity well beyond predictions from continental phylogenetically corrected scaling models. Our results support the life history axiom of the island syndrome as generality for insular mammals, regardless of whether they have evolved into dwarfs or giants.
Keywords (en)
Life-History Traits; Lepus-Europaeus; Bone-Histology; Reaction Norms; Large Mammals; Island Rule; Body-Size; Evolution; Age; Growth
DOI
10.1016/j.isci.2023.107654
Author of the digital object
Meike Köhler  (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Salvador Moyà-Solà  (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Franz Suchentrunk  (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna)
Carmen Nacarino-Meneses  (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Josep Quintana Cardona  (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Walter Arnold-Ard  (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna)
Gabrielle Stalder  (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna)
Format
application/pdf
Size
6.5 MB
Licence Selected
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Type of publication
Article
Name of Publication (en)
iScience
Pages or Volume
18
Volume
26
Number
9
Publisher
Cell Press
Publication Date
2023