Do convergent ecomorphs evolve through convergent morphological pathways? Cranial shape evolution in fossil hyaenids and borophagine canids (Carnivora, Mammalia)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cases of convergent evolution, particularly within ecomorphological contexts, are instructive in identifying universally adaptive morphological features across clades. Tracing of evolutionary pathways by which ecomorphological convergence takes place can further reveal mechanisms of adaptation, which may be strongly influenced by phylogeny. Ecomorphologies of carnivorous mammals represent some of the most outstanding cases of convergent evolution in the Cenozoic radiation of mammals. This study examined patterns of cranial shape change in the dog (Canidae) and hyena (Hyaenidae) families, in order to compare the evolutionary pathways that led to the independent specialization of bone-cracking hypercarnivores within each clade. Geometric morphometrics analyses of cranial shape in fossil hyaenids and borophagine canids provided evidence for deep-time convergence in morphological pathways toward the independent evolution of derived bone-crackers. Both clades contained stem members with plesiomorphic generalist/omnivore cranial shapes, which evolved into doglike species along parallel pathways of shape change. The evolution of specialized bone-crackers from these doglike forms, however, continued under the constraint of a full cheek dentition and restriction on rostrum length reduction in canids, but not hyaenids. Functionally, phylogenetic constraint may have limited borophagine canids to crack bones principally with their carnassial instead of the third premolar as in hyaenids, but other cranial shape changes associated with durophagy nevertheless evolved in parallel in the two lineages. Size allometry was not a major factor in cranial shape evolution in either lineage, supporting the interpretation of functional demands as drivers for the observed convergence. The comparison between borophagines and hyaenids showed that differential effects of alternative functional “solutions” that arise during morphological evolution may be multiplied with processes of the “macroevolutionary ratchet” already in place to further limit the evolutionary pathways available to specialized lineages.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".