Using three-dimensional geometric morphometric and dental topographic analyses to infer the systematics and paleoecology of fossil treeshrews (Mammalia, Scandentia)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Treeshrews are small, Indomalayan mammals closely related to primates. Previously, three-dimensional geometric morphometric analyses were used to assess patterns of treeshrew lower second molar morphology, which showed that the positions of molar landmarks covary with intraordinal systematics. Another analysis used dental topographic metrics to test patterns of functional dental morphology and found that molar curvature, complexity, and relief were an effective means for examining patterns of variation in treeshrew dietary ecology. Here, we build on these analyses by adding two fossil taxa,Prodendrogale yunnanicaQiu, 1986 from the Miocene of China andPtilocercus kylinLi and Ni, 2016 from the Oligocene of China. Our results show thatPr. yunnanicahad a dental bauplan more like that of a tupaiid than that of a ptilocercid, but that the extant tupaiids, includingTupaiaandDendrogale, are more similar to one another in this regard than any are toProdendrogale.This is contrary to our expectations asProdendrogaleis hypothesized to be most closely related toDendrogale. Ptilocercus kylin,which has been proposed to be the sister taxon ofPt. lowiiGray, 1848, is characterized by dental morphology like that ofPt. lowiiin crest and cuspal position but is interpreted to have been more frugivorous. It has been claimed thatPtilocercushas undergone little morphological change through time. Our results suggest thatPt. kylinwas more ecologically distinct fromPt. lowiithan previously proposed, providing a glimpse into a more complex evolutionary history of the group than had been inferred.
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 | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 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".