Re: How archosauromorphs beat out therapsids

[Heinrich Mallison <heinrich.mallison@googlemail.com>]

Interestingly, much of what is verbatim quotes in the press is not
touched upon in the paper at all. And that stuff comes across, in the
press, as being results of the study, when in fact it is old news.

Me = not happy.
___________________________________
Dr. Heinrich Mallison
Abteilung Forschung
Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz-Institut
für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung
an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Invalidenstrasse 43
10115 Berlin
Office phone: +49 (0)30 2093 8764
Email: heinrich.mallison@gmail.com
_____________________________________
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Gaius Julius Caesar



On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Ben Creisler
> bcreisler@gmail.com
>
>
> Here's the official citation:
>
>
> Roland B. Sookias, Richard J. Butler and Roger B. J. Benson (2012)
> Rise of dinosaurs reveals major body-size transitions are driven by
> passive processes of trait evolution.
> Proceedings of the Royal Society B (advance online publication)
> doi: 10.1098/rspb.2011.2441
> http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/01/31/rspb.2011.2441.abstract
>
> The pdf of the data supplement is free:
> http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/suppl/2012/01/31/rspb.2011.2441.DC1/rspb20112441supp2.pdf
>
>
> A major macroevolutionary question concerns how long-term patterns of
> body-size evolution are underpinned by smaller scale processes along
> lineages. One outstanding long-term transition is the replacement of
> basal therapsids (stem-group mammals) by archosauromorphs, including
> dinosaurs, as the dominant large-bodied terrestrial fauna during the
> Triassic (approx. 252–201 million years ago). This landmark event
> preceded more than 150 million years of archosauromorph dominance. We
> analyse a new body-size dataset of more than 400 therapsid and
> archosauromorph species spanning the Late Permian–Middle Jurassic.
> Maximum-likelihood analyses indicate that Cope's rule (an active
> within-lineage trend of body-size increase) is extremely rare, despite
> conspicuous patterns of body-size turnover, and contrary to proposals
> that Cope's rule is central to vertebrate evolution. Instead, passive
> processes predominate in taxonomically and ecomorphologically more
> inclusive clades, with stasis common in less inclusive clades.
> Body-size limits are clade-dependent, suggesting intrinsic, biological
> factors are more important than the external environment. This
> clade-dependence is exemplified by maximum size of Middle–early Late
> Triassic archosauromorph predators exceeding that of contemporary
> herbivores, breaking a widely-accepted ‘rule’ that herbivore maximum
> size greatly exceeds carnivore maximum size. Archosauromorph and
> dinosaur dominance occurred via opportunistic replacement of
> therapsids following extinction, but were facilitated by higher
> archosauromorph growth rates.
>
>
> ========
>
>
>
> Two news story links about a new study of how archosauromorphs beat
> out therapsids and reached huge size.
> The official article has not been posted yet on the Proceedings of the
> Royal Society B site:
>
>
>
> http://news.discovery.com/animals/how-dinosaurs-got-so-big-120131.html
>
> http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/01/the-secret-of-dinos-success.html?ref=hp