Six million years of vole dental evolution shaped by tooth development

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lafuma, Fabien; Renvoise, Elodie; Clavel, Julien; Corfe, Ian J.; Escarguel, Gilles
• 署名单位: University of Helsinki; Universite PSL; Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); CNRS - National Institute for Biology (INSB); Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (Inserm); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); CNRS - Institute of Ecology & Environment (INEE); Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1; Geological Survey of Finland (GTK)
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-10766
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2505624122/-/DCSupplemental
• 发表日期: 2025-08-05
• 关键词: r package; model selection; mammalian teeth; enamel knot; rodentia; size; constraints; regression; INNOVATION; patterns

摘要

Morphological change occurs over macroevolutionary timescales under the action of natural selection and genetic drift combined with developmental processes shaping organogenesis. Although determining their relative weight is made difficult by discrepancies between paleontological and neontological data, mammalian tooth morphology may bridge the gap between fossil record and laboratory observations. Fossils indicate that mammals have frequently diversified after evolving molars bearing more cusps, while developmental biology shows these emerge through the iterative signaling of enamel knots. However, this theoretical evo-devo model of mammalian tooth evolution has not been tested with empirical data from both fossils and laboratory experiments. In doing so, we identify a shared developmental basis for the convergent, ratcheted evolution of increasingly complex molars in arvicoline rodents (voles, lemmings, muskrats). Longer, narrower molars lead to more cusps throughout development and deep time, suggesting that tooth development directed morphological evolution. Both the arvicoline fossil record and vole tooth development show slower transitions toward the highest cusp counts. This pattern suggests that the developmental processes fueling the evolution of increasingly complex molars may also limit the potential for further complexity increases. Integrating paleontological and developmental data shows that long-term evolutionary trends can be accurately and mostly explained by the simple tinkering of developmental pathways.