ArticleCommunications biology2021
The impact of locomotion on the brain evolution of squirrels and close relatives.
Article in Communications biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- The squirrel barrier concept and its bearing on the evolution of aerial mammals.BMC ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- But how does it smell? An investigation of olfactory bulb size among living and fossil primates and other euarchontoglirans.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Article
- Semicircular canal morphology in Rodentia and its relationship to locomotion.Journal of anatomy · 2025Article
- Article
- The allometry of brain size in Euarchontoglires: clade-specific patterns and their impact on encephalization quotients.Journal of mammalogy · 2024Article
- Endocranial shape variation and allometry in Euarchontoglires.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Unveiling the neuroanatomy of Josephoartigasia monesi and the evolution of encephalization in caviomorph rodents.Brain structure & function · 2024Article
- The virtual brain endocast of Trogosus (Mammalia, Tillodontia) and its relevance in understanding the extinction of archaic placental mammals.Journal of anatomy · 2024Article
- Neuroanatomy of the late Cretaceous Thescelosaurus neglectus (Neornithischia: Thescelosauridae) reveals novel ecological specialisations within Dinosauria.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Fossil brains provide evidence of underwater feeding in early seals.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Evolution of cortical geometry and its link to function, behaviour and ecology.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Counter-gradient variation and the expensive tissue hypothesis explain parallel brain size reductions at high elevation in cricetid and murid rodents.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Incipient morphological specializations associated with fossorial life in the skull of ground squirrels (Sciuridae, Rodentia).Journal of morphology · 2023Article
- Ecological correlates of the morphology of the auditory bulla in rodents: Application to the fossil record.Journal of anatomy · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
How do brain size and proportions relate to ecology and evolutionary history? Here, we use virtual endocasts from 38 extinct and extant rodent species spanning 50+ million years of evolution to assess the impact of locomotion, body mass, and phylogeny on the size of the brain, olfactory bulbs, petrosal lobules, and neocortex. We find that body mass and phylogeny are highly correlated with relative brain and brain component size, and that locomotion strongly influences brain, petrosal lobule, and neocortical sizes. Notably, species living in trees have greater relative overall brain, petrosal lobule, and neocortical sizes compared to other locomotor categories, especially fossorial taxa. Across millions of years of Eocene-Recent environmental change, arboreality played a major role in the early evolution of squirrels and closely related aplodontiids, promoting the expansion of the neocortex and petrosal lobules. Fossoriality in aplodontiids had an opposing effect by reducing the need for large brains.
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