The emergence and demise of giant sloths

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Boscaini, Alberto; Casali, Daniel M.; Toledo, Nestor; Cantalapiedra, Juan L.; Bargo, M. Susana; De Iuliis, Gerardo; Gaudin, Timothy J.; Langer, Max C.; Narducci, Rachel; Pujos, Francois; Soto, Eduardo M.; Vizcaino, Sergio F.; Soto, Ignacio M.
• 署名单位: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET); University of Buenos Aires; Universidade de Sao Paulo; National University of La Plata; Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC); CSIC - Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN); Universidad de Alcala; Leibniz Institut fur Evolutions und Biodiversitatsforschung; Comision de Investigaciones Cientificas; University of Toronto; Royal Ontario Museum; University of Tennessee System; University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-12789
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adu0704
• 发表日期: 2025-05-22
• 页码: 864-868
• 关键词: body-size; EVOLUTION; extinction; mammals; uplift

摘要

The emergence of multi-tonne herbivores is a recurrent aspect of the Cenozoic mammalian radiation. Several of these giants have vanished within the past 130,000 years, but the timing and macroevolutionary drivers behind this pattern of rise and collapse remain unclear for some megaherbivore lineages. Using trait modeling that combines total-evidence evolutionary trees and a comprehensive size dataset, we show that sloth body mass evolved with major lifestyle shifts and that most terrestrial lineages reached their largest sizes through slower evolutionary rates compared with extant arboreal forms. Size disparity increased during the late Cenozoic climatic cooling, but paleoclimatic changes do not explain the rapid extinction of ground sloths that started approximately 15,000 years ago. Their abrupt demise suggests human-driven factors in the decline and extinction of ground sloths.