ArticleBMC biology2013
Statistical support for the hypothesis of developmental constraint in marsupial skull evolution.
Article in BMC biology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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25 citing papers in PubMed, 64 citations in OpenAlex.
- Skull morphology of the extinct Tasmanian tiger suggests unique biting style.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A suture in time: The ontogeny of cranial suture morphology in mammals.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- Behavioural and electroencephalographic assessment of captive-bolt stunning in kangaroo pouch young.Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2026Article
- Long-term impacts of captivity on skull morphology and endocranial volume in a marsupial carnivore.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Divergent patterns of cranial suture fusion in marsupial and placental mammals.Zoological journal of the Linnean Society · 2025Article
- Ontogeny of the masticatory muscles in the opossum Didelphis albiventris (Marsupialia, Didelphimorphia, Didelphidae).Journal of anatomy · 2024Article
- Evolution, divergence, and convergence in the mandibles of opossums (Didelphidae, Didelphimorphia).Current zoology · 2024Article
- Variation and Variability in Skeletal Ossification of the Gray Short-tailed Opossum,Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
- Translating the Timing of Developmental Benchmarks in Short-Tailed Opossums (Monodelphisdomestica) to Facilitate Comparisons with Commonly Used Rodent Models.Brain, behavior and evolution · 2024Article
- Patterns of ontogenetic evolution across extant marsupials reflect different allometric pathways to ecomorphological diversity.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Marsupials and Multi-Omics: Establishing New Comparative Models of Neural Crest Patterning and Craniofacial Development.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
- Postnatal development in a marsupial model, the fat-tailed dunnart (Sminthopsis crassicaudata; Dasyuromorphia: Dasyuridae).Communications biology · 2021Article
- Size, microhabitat, and loss of larval feeding drive cranial diversification in frogs.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Functional constraints during development limit jaw shape evolution in marsupials.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Functional traits of the world's late Quaternary large-bodied avian and mammalian herbivores.Scientific data · 2021Article
- Individual variation of the masticatory system dominates 3D skull shape in the herbivory-adapted marsupial wombats.Frontiers in zoology · 2019Article
- A fly in a tube: Macroevolutionary expectations for integrated phenotypes.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2018Review
- Letting the 'cat' out of the bag: pouch young development of the extinct Tasmanian tiger revealed by X-ray computed tomography.Royal Society open science · 2018Article
- Creating diversity in mammalian facial morphology: a review of potential developmental mechanisms.EvoDevo · 2018Review
- RUNX2 repeat variation does not drive craniofacial diversity in marsupials.BMC evolutionary biology · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn contrast to placental neonates, in which all cranial bones are ossified, marsupial young have only the bones of the oral region and the exoccipital ossified at birth, in order to facilitate suckling at an early stage of development. In this study, we investigated whether this heterochronic shift in the timing of cranial ossification constrains cranial disparity in marsupials relative to placentals.
methodsWe collected three-dimensional (3D) landmark data about the crania of a wide range of extant placentals and marsupials, and from six fossil metatherians (the clade including extant marsupials and their stem relatives), using a laser scanner and a 3D digitizer. Principal components analysis and delta variance tests were used to investigate the distribution and disparity of cranial morphology between different landmark sets (optimizing either number of landmarks or number of taxa) of the whole skull and of individual developmental or functional regions (neurocranium, viscerocranium, oral region) for extant placentals and marsupials. Marsupial and placental data was also compared based on shared ecological aspects including diet, habitat, and time of peak activity.
resultsWe found that the extant marsupial taxa investigated here occupy a much smaller area of morphospace than the placental taxa, with a significantly (P<0.01) smaller overall variance. Inclusion of fossil taxa did not significantly increase the variance of metatherian cranial shape. Fossil forms generally plotted close to or within the realm of their extant marsupial relatives. When the disparities of cranial regions were investigated separately, significant differences between placentals and marsupials were seen for the viscerocranial and oral regions, but not for the neurocranial region.
conclusionThese results support the hypothesis of developmental constraint limiting the evolution of the marsupial skull, and further suggest that the marsupial viscerocranium as a whole, rather than just the early-ossifying oral region, is developmentally constrained.
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