Body size, shape and ecology in tetrapods

Alice E. Maher (), Gustavo Burin, Philip G. Cox, Thomas W. Maddox, Susannah C. R. Maidment, Natalie Cooper, Emma R. Schachner and Karl T. Bates
Additional contact information
Alice E. Maher: University of Liverpool, William Henry Duncan Building
Gustavo Burin: Natural History Museum, London
Philip G. Cox: University of York, PalaeoHub
Thomas W. Maddox: University of Liverpool, Small Animal Teaching Hospital, Leahurst Campus
Susannah C. R. Maidment: Natural History Museum, London
Natalie Cooper: Natural History Museum, London
Emma R. Schachner: Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center
Karl T. Bates: University of Liverpool, William Henry Duncan Building

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Body size and shape play fundamental roles in organismal function and it is expected that animals may possess body proportions that are well-suited to their ecological niche. Tetrapods exhibit a diverse array of body shapes, but to date this diversity in body proportions and its relationship to ecology have not been systematically quantified. Using whole-body skeletal models of 410 extinct and extant tetrapods, we show that allometric relationships vary across individual body segments thereby yielding changes in overall body shape as size increases. However, we also find statistical support for quadratic relationships indicative of differential scaling in small-medium versus large animals. Comparisons of locomotor and dietary groups highlight key differences in body proportions that may mechanistically underlie occupation of major ecological niches. Our results emphasise the pivotal role of body proportions in the broad-scale ecological diversity of tetrapods.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32028-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-32028-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32028-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().