RT Conference Proceedings
T1 A morphometric characterization of cranial shape in terrestrial carnivorans based on fourier analysis
A1 Pérez-Claros, Juan Antonio
A1 Martín-Serra, Alberto
A1 Figueirido-Castillo, Francisco Borja
A1 Janis, Christine Marie
A1 Palmqvist-Barrena, Carlos Paul
K1 Fourier, Análisis de
K1 Carnívoros - Morfología
AB A number of studies have shown that skull morphology reflects the ecological adaptations of terrestrial carnivores as well as their phylogenetic legacy. Here we use Fourier shape analysis for describing the dorsal outline of the cranium in a number of extant and extinct species in the order Carnivora. To evaluate to what extent the shapes of the outlines analyzed reflect phylogeny and/or adaptation, a principal components analysis was performed with the harmonic amplitudes of the Fourier analyses. Resultsobtained show that cranial morphology is highly constrained by the phylogenetic legacy of each carnivoran family, as those species belonging to the same family tend to be placed in the same region of the morphospace. However, a functional signal is also present. In particular, after controlling for size effects, there is a weak but significant correlation between an axis of morphological variation and the estimates of bite force at the level of the upper canine, while another independent axis is related to bite forcemeasurements at the carnassial. The wide distribution of canids in the empirical morphospace reflects their ecological disparity, while the restricted dispersal on the plot of saber-tooth predators probably results from biomechanical constraints posed by theirhighly specialized, hypertrophied upper canines. Moreover, there is a general allometric trend for all carnivoran families, which is associated with the lateral expansion of the zygomatic arches, and two different allometric trends exclusive to canids and felids,respectively, which are linked to snout length. Our results show that phylogeny constrains to a large extent the morphological adaptive zone which carnivoran species can inhabit.
YR 2013
FD 2013-11-08
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10630/6397
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10630/6397
LA eng
NO Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech.
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 4 mar 2026