ArticleNature communications2019
Stepwise shifts underlie evolutionary trends in morphological complexity of the mammalian vertebral column.
Article in Nature communications, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- Quantification of molar sub-regions suggests increasing herbivory during primate origins.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Evolution of the reptile spine reveals independent trajectories to axial skeletal complexity in amniotes.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Human Neocortical Glutamatergic Neurons Revealed Through Multimodal Profiling.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Modularity and integration of the neural arch and vertebral centrum in primates.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Article
- Adaptive landscapes unveil the complex evolutionary path from sprawling to upright forelimb function and posture in mammals.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Does fast running limit numerical variability of the vertebral column in rabbits and hares (Leporidae: Lagomorpha)?Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Quantifying the configurational complexity of biological systems in multivariate 'complexity space'.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Late acquisition of erect hindlimb posture and function in the forerunners of therian mammals.Science advances · 2024Article
- Origins of mammalian vertebral function revealed through digital bending experiments.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Small body size is associated with increased evolutionary lability of wing skeleton proportions in birds.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Uncovering the mosaic evolution of the carnivoran skeletal system.Biology letters · 2024Article
- Volumetric versus Element-scaling Mass Estimation and Its Application to Permo-Triassic Tetrapods.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
- Article
- The impact of the land-to-sea transition on evolutionary integration and modularity of the pinniped backbone.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Derived faunivores are the forerunners of major synapsid radiations.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- Bird clades with less complex appendicular skeletons tend to have higher species richness.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Divergent vertebral formulae shape the evolution of axial complexity in mammals.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- Article
- Regionalization, constraints, and the ancestral ossification patterns in the vertebral column of amniotes.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Simple mechanisms for the evolution of protein complexity.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2022Review
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3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A fundamental concept in evolutionary biology is that life tends to become more complex through geologic time, but empirical examples of this phenomenon are controversial. One debate is whether increasing complexity is the result of random variations, or if there are evolutionary processes which actively drive its acquisition, and if these processes act uniformly across clades. The mammalian vertebral column provides an opportunity to test these hypotheses because it is composed of serially-repeating vertebrae for which complexity can be readily measured. Here we test seven competing hypotheses for the evolution of vertebral complexity by incorporating fossil data from the mammal stem lineage into evolutionary models. Based on these data, we reject Brownian motion (a random walk) and uniform increasing trends in favor of stepwise shifts for explaining increasing complexity. We hypothesize that increased aerobic capacity in non-mammalian cynodonts may have provided impetus for increasing vertebral complexity in mammals.
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