Article
Geography, Physical
Luigi Ferranti, Pierfrancesco Burrato, Daniele Sechi, Stefano Andreucci, Fabrizio Pepe, Vincenzo Pascucci
Summary: Mapping and luminescence aging of raised marine terraces and aeolian ridges along a 90 km coastal stretch in southwestern Sicily provide the first quantitative assessment of vertical tectonic deformation in this region. The results demonstrate that the uplift includes a regional component related to the involvement of thicker crustal portions of the northern African continental margin in the thrust belt, and a local component corresponding to actively growing bedrock folds.
QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2021)
Article
Geography, Physical
Lope Ezquerro, Arsenio Munoz, Carlos L. Liesa
Summary: This article presents a high-resolution lacustrine record from a western Mediterranean intramountain basin, providing detailed paleoclimatic information from the Late Miocene to the Early Pleistocene. The study reveals the influence of orbital forcing and global paleogeographic and climate change on regional paleoclimate, as well as the connection between continental climate and marine dynamics in southwestern Europe. It suggests that the closure of the Central Atlantic Seaway and changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation played a role in the regional climate variability.
GLOBAL AND PLANETARY CHANGE
(2022)
Article
Biology
Salvador Moya-Sola, Josep Quintana Cardona, Meike Kohler
Summary: This study describes the first endemic large mammal from the Neogene of the Island Eivissa in Spain, which is a new genus and species of an endemic insular bovid called Ebusia n. gen. moralesi n. sp. The taxon shows primitive dentition similar to continental bovids, with a long and complex lower p2 and upper P2 and P3, long premolar series, and non-hypsodont incisors. However, the metapodials show an intermediate degree of shortening compared to continental bovids and other insular ruminants. The derived insular adaptations suggest that Ebusia n. gen. represents the initial phase of isolation.
HISTORICAL BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Geography, Physical
B. Nirmal, K. Mohan
Summary: Utilizing a 10-million-year record of planktonic foraminifera, the study sheds light on the late Neogene to Quaternary faunal evolution and surface water changes in the Subantarctic Zone, highlighting high productive surface waters in the Indian Ocean and the evolution of deep dwelling faunas over time.
PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Geography, Physical
Isaac Salem A. A. Bezerra, Afonso C. R. Nogueira, Marcelo B. Motta, Andre O. Sawakuchi, Thays D. Mineli, Arnaldo de Q. Silva, Antonio G. Silva Jr, Fabio H. G. Domingos, Giovanni A. T. Mata, Felipe J. Lima, Silvio R. L. Rike
Summary: This study analyzes the fluvial deposits associated with the Amazon River in central-eastern Amazonia and improves the chronostratigraphic framework of the region through geomorphological and sedimentary facies analyses, age dating, and sediment provenance data. The results show that the Amazon River has gradually eroded the valley in central-eastern Amazonia since the Late Miocene, forming abandoned fluvial terraces and an active floodplain.
Article
Ecology
Flavia Boscolo-Galazzo, Amy Jones, Tom Dunkley Jones, Katherine A. Crichton, Bridget S. Wade, Paul N. Pearson
Summary: The fossil record of marine microplankton provides insights into the evolutionary drivers behind the origin of modern deep-water plankton. Research over the past 15 million years shows that global cooling and increased efficiency of the biological pump have favored the evolution of deep-water organisms.
Article
Geography, Physical
Valenti Rull
Summary: This paper analyzes the diversification of the Neotropical mangrove flora in the Caribbean region from the Miocene to the present. A Neogene-Quaternary diversification trend has been identified, with an increase of 25 genera compared to the existing Paleogene representatives. The appearance of mangrove genera occurred mainly in the Miocene and Oligo-Miocene transition, contributing to the overall diversification pattern. The absence of regional extinctions since the Miocene suggests the persistence of mangrove diversity in the Caribbean.
QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Weimin He, Leihua Wei, Shuya Xu, Senlin Wan, Jie Yang, Mingjun Liu
Summary: The Kouma Fault, newly discovered at the northern foot of the Mangshan Mountain in Luoyang City, China, is an active fault with significant implications for earthquake prevention and land planning.
FRONTIERS IN EARTH SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Geography, Physical
Patrick D. Nunn, Ingrid Ward, Pierre Stephan, Adrian McCallum, W. Roland Gehrels, Genevieve Carey, Amy Clarke, Margaret Cook, Paul Geraghty, David Guilfoyle, Bianca McNeair, Glen Miller, Elia Nakoro, Doc Reynolds, Lisa Stewart
Summary: After the last ice age, rising sea levels affected coastal peoples, leading to the formation of offshore islands and causing the loss of land and isolation. This study explores how observations of postglacial sea-level rise have been encoded into oral traditions across generations, and how these stories contribute to our understanding of the human-societal impacts of coastal submergence and land loss.
QUATERNARY INTERNATIONAL
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Xingfeng Si, Marc W. Cadotte, T. Jonathan Davies, Alexandre Antonelli, Ping Ding, Jens-Christian Svenning, Soren Faurby
Summary: Island mammal assemblages are shaped by eco-evolutionary processes, including evolutionary history clustering and functional trait clustering. The intensity of these clustering phenomena is determined by island size and isolation. In situ speciation and dispersal filtering play important roles in the formation of island mammal assemblages.
Article
Geography, Physical
A. M. Jukar, S. K. Lyons, P. J. Wagner, M. D. Uhen
Summary: Research shows that a low magnitude extinction event of large mammals occurred in the Indian Subcontinent approximately 30,000 years after the arrival of Homo sapiens. The co-evolution hypothesis between humans and animals, as well as robust population networks and climatic refugia, are suggested to have played a significant role in the survival of megafauna in this region.
PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Danielle Fraser, Amelia Villasenor, Aniko B. Toth, Meghan A. Balk, Jussi T. Eronen, W. Andrew Barr, A. K. Behrensmeyer, Matt Davis, Andrew Du, J. Tyler Faith, Gary R. Graves, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Advait M. Jukar, Cindy Looy, Brian J. McGill, Joshua H. Miller, Silvia Pineda-Munoz, Richard Potts, Alex B. Shupinski, Laura C. Soul, S. Kathleen Lyons
Summary: This study investigates the biotic homogenization of North American mammalian assemblages and finds that it has been occurring for thousands of years. The phenomenon is most pronounced among mammals larger than 1 kg. Additionally, human impacts on ecosystems can be traced back to approximately 10,000 years ago.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Yucheng Wang, Mikkel Winther Pedersen, Inger Greve Alsos, Bianca De Sanctis, Fernando Racimo, Ana Prohaska, Eric Coissac, Hannah Lois Owens, Marie Kristine Foreid Merkel, Antonio Fernandez-Guerra, Alexandra Rouillard, Youri Lammers, Adriana Alberti, France Denoeud, Daniel Money, Anthony H. Ruter, Hugh McColl, Nicolaj Krog Larsen, Anna A. Cherezova, Mary E. Edwards, Grigory B. Fedorov, James Haile, Ludovic Orlando, Lasse Vinner, Thorfinn Sand Korneliussen, David W. Beilman, Anders A. Bjork, Jialu Cao, Christoph Dockter, Julie Esdale, Galina Gusarova, Kristian K. Kjeldsen, Jan Mangerud, Jeffrey T. Rasic, Birgitte Skadhauge, John Inge Svendsen, Alexei Tikhonov, Patrick Wincker, Yingchun Xing, Yubin Zhang, Duane G. Froese, Carsten Rahbek, David Bravo Nogues, Philip B. Holden, Neil R. Edwards, Richard Durbin, David J. Meltzer, Kurt H. Kjaer, Per Moller, Eske Willerslev
Summary: A large-scale metagenomic analysis of plant and mammal environmental DNA in the circumpolar region over the past 50,000 years shows complex ecological changes, including the extinction of large mammals postglacially and the emergence of modern ecosystems. The study provides insights into the long-term dynamics of Arctic biota at both circumpolar and regional scales, highlighting the power of ancient environmental metagenomics analyses in understanding population histories and long-term ecological dynamics.
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Nurcan Kaya, Z. Mumtaz Hisarli, Norbert R. Nowaczyk, Ozlem Makaroglu
Summary: A detailed palaeointensity study was conducted in Central Anatolia, Turkey, using the modified Thellier method. The study significantly increased the database of palaeomagnetic data for the Anatolian region, covering a time window back to approximately 6 Ma. The results also revealed the presence of the Brunhes and Matuyama Chrons, as well as high field strength in the Pleistocene.
GEOPHYSICAL JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Allison T. Karp, J. Tyler Faith, Jennifer R. Marlon, A. Carla Staver
Summary: The study found that herbivore extinction leads to an increase in grassy ecosystem fire activity, especially in regions on continents with the most severe losses of grazers. Conversely, declines in browsers had no such effect. These shifts suggest that herbivory can have global effects on fire activity, and the impacts of herbivores should be explicitly considered when predicting changes in global fire activity in the past and future.
Article
Evolutionary Biology
Pere Bover, Kieren J. Mitchell, Enric Torres-Roig, Bastien Llamas, Vicki A. Thomson, Josep Antoni Alcover, Jordi Agusti, Alan Cooper, Joan Pons
JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGICAL SYSTEMATICS AND EVOLUTIONARY RESEARCH
(2020)
Article
Ecology
Roberto Rozzi, Sara Varela, Pere Bover, Jeff M. Martin
JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2020)
Article
Zoology
Enric Torres-Roig, Kieren J. Mitchell, Josep Antoni Alcover, Fernando Martinez-Freiria, Salvador Bailon, Holly Heiniger, Matthew Williams, Alan Cooper, Joan Pons, Pere Bover
Summary: The study identified a new subspecies of viper on the island of Eivissa in the Balearic Islands, which was a result of insular evolutionary processes and became extinct around 4000 years after the arrival of humans.
ZOOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Angela R. Perri, Kieren J. Mitchell, Alice Mouton, Sandra Alvarez-Carretero, Ardern Hulme-Beaman, James Haile, Alexandra Jamieson, Julie Meachen, Audrey T. Lin, Blaine W. Schubert, Carly Ameen, Ekaterina E. Antipina, Pere Bover, Selina Brace, Alberto Carmagnini, Christian Caroe, Jose A. Samaniego Castruita, James C. Chatters, Keith Dobney, Mario dos Reis, Allowen Evin, Philippe Gaubert, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Graham Gower, Holly Heiniger, Kristofer M. Helgen, Josh Kapp, Pavel A. Kosintsev, Anna Linderholm, Andrew T. Ozga, Samantha Presslee, Alexander T. Salis, Nedda F. Saremi, Colin Shew, Katherine Skerry, Dmitry E. Taranenko, Mary Thompson, Mikhail V. Sablin, Yaroslav V. Kuzmin, Matthew J. Collins, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Anne C. Stone, Beth Shapiro, Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Robert K. Wayne, Greger Larson, Alan Cooper, Laurent A. F. Frantz
Summary: Dire wolves, common in Pleistocene America, were found to have diverged from living canids around 5.7 million years ago and evolved in isolation from ancestors of grey wolves and coyotes. There is no evidence of gene flow between dire wolves and North American grey wolves or coyotes, indicating a distinct evolutionary history. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves compared to the Eurasian ancestors of other canids.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Manon Curaudeau, Roberto Rozzi, Alexandre Hassanin
Summary: By analyzing genomes of different types of water buffalo, it was discovered that the lowland anoa, river buffalo, and swamp buffalo are three distinct taxa that originated rapidly during the Pleistocene epoch. It was suggested that domestic water buffalo should be classified as two species: Bubalus bubalis for the river buffalo and Bubalus kerabau for the swamp buffalo, which could have significant implications for evolution, selection, and conservation of wild buffalo populations in South and Southeast Asia.
MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Geography, Physical
Luca Bellucci, Maria Rita Palombo, Daniel DeMiguel, Flavia Strani, Maria Teresa Alberdi
Summary: The Guadix-Baza Basin in Europe is one of the few continental basins with a well-dated set of fossiliferous sites. The Cullar de Baza 1 (CB-1) is crucial for studying the effects of the Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition and the evolution of European horses. Additionally, CB-1 is important for biochronological studies of the late Early Pleistocene/Middle Pleistocene transition in the Iberian peninsula.
QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2021)
Article
Genetics & Heredity
Joan Pons, Juan Jose Ensenyat, Pere Bover, Miquel Serra, Francesco Nardi
Summary: The sequencing, annotation, and analysis of complete mitochondrial genomes play a crucial role in phylogeny and evolution research, where manual curation of annotations is necessary. Researchers have developed a python script to recreate a feature table from manually curated gene alignments, filling a gap in existing tools.
MITOCHONDRIAL DNA PART B-RESOURCES
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Laura Mendez, Duarte S. Viana, Adriana Alzate, W. Daniel Kissling, Wolf L. Eiserhardt, Roberto Rozzi, Mijoro Rakotoarinivo, Renske E. Onstein
Summary: The extinction of megafrugivores in Madagascar may have impacted the distribution of vertebrate-dispersed plants on the island. This study shows that extant frugivore distributions and abiotic variables play a significant role in palm species turnover, with some contribution from extinct megafrugivore distributions. Palm species with large fruits are negatively associated with frugivore richness and home range sizes, indicating potential seed dispersal dysfunction.
Article
Geography, Physical
Maria Rita Palombo, Montserrat Sanz, Joan Daura
Summary: The study unearthed a nearly complete skeleton of an approximately 5-year-old elephant calf, estimated to be about 178-187 cm tall and weighing around 1450-1500 kg. This fossil is of great interest for understanding the ontogenetic processes in continental straight-tusked elephants, yet it also highlights the challenges and limitations in such research.
QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2021)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Marco Zedda, Antonio Brunetti, Maria Rita Palombo
Summary: This study used microtomographic analysis to investigate the hearing ability of Cynotherium sardous, a highly modified canid species that lived on Sardinia. The results suggest that C. sardous had poor hearing abilities, possibly due to reduced competition pressure. This study provides insights into the evolution and behavior of C. sardous in a unique ecosystem.
Article
Geology
Marco Romano, Fabio Manucci, Matteo Antonelli, Maria Adelaide Rossi, Silvano Agostini, Maria Rita Palombo
Summary: This study presents an in vivo reconstruction and volumetric body mass estimate for the mounted skeleton of Mammuthus meridionalis. The results show that weight estimates based on single measures and single bones can lead to underestimation or overestimation up to 130%. Therefore, it is important to avoid using single bone data in weight estimates of extinct tetrapods.
RIVISTA ITALIANA DI PALEONTOLOGIA E STRATIGRAFIA
(2022)
Review
Environmental Sciences
Rebecca Spake, Martha Paola Barajas-Barbosa, Shane A. Blowes, Diana E. Bowler, Corey T. Callaghan, Magda Garbowski, Stephanie D. Jurburg, Roel van Klink, Lotte Korell, Emma Ladouceur, Roberto Rozzi, Duarte S. Viana, Wu-Bing Xu, Jonathan M. Chase
Summary: Ecological thresholds refer to relatively fast changes in ecological conditions within a short period of time, and their existence and generalizability are debated across various ecological subdisciplines. Using the concept of scale as a unifying framework, the article emphasizes how the observational scale can influence threshold detection and magnitude, highlighting the importance of nuances in comprehensive studies and policy translation.
ANNUAL REVIEW OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Alexander Zizka, Renske E. Onstein, Roberto Rozzi, Patrick Weigelt, Holger Kreft, Manuel J. Steinbauer, Helge Bruelheide, Frederic Lens
Summary: Insular woodiness (IW), the transition from herbaceousness to woodiness, is a distinctive feature of island floras. Previous studies have proposed several drivers of IW, including competition for sunlight, drought, increased lifespan, and reduced herbivory. This study identified 1,097 insular woody species on 375 islands and inferred at least 175 evolutionary transitions on 31 archipelagos. Structural equation models revealed the correlation between insular woody species richness and favorable climate, drought, and island isolation. The results highlight the importance of archipelagos as natural laboratories for studying convergent evolution.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Roberto Rozzi, Mark Lomolino, Alexandra A. E. van der Geer, Daniele Silvestro, S. Kathleen Lyons, Pere Bover, Josep A. Alcover, Ana Benitez-Lopez, Cheng-Hsiu Tsai, Masaki Fujita, Mugino O. Kubo, Janine Ochoa, Matthew E. Scarborough, Samuel T. Turvey, Alexander Zizka, Jonathan M. Chase
Summary: Islands have long been recognized as unique environments for evolutionary divergence, resulting in variations in body size, such as dwarfs and giants. Incorporating data from 1231 extant and 350 extinct species, our study spanning 23 million years reveals that island mammals with extreme body sizes are most vulnerable to extinction. Moreover, the arrival of modern humans has significantly accelerated extinction rates, leading to the near complete eradication of these iconic examples of island evolution.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Maria Rita Palombo
Summary: The text briefly discusses whether the current decline in biodiversity could be a signal of a ongoing, human-driven sixth mass extinction, touching upon the challenges of comparing current extinction rates to past mass extinction events and the effects of anthropogenic stressors on ecosystems, including the risk of pandemic diseases.