Sistemática y evolución de los armadillos Dasypodini (Xenarthra, Cingulata, Dasypodidae)

The Dasypodini are one of the most basal clades of cingulates according to morphologic and molecular phylogenetic analyses. Its living representatives are the group of armadillos with most species and the widest latitudinal geographic distribution, occupying distinct biomes aproximatelly between 40° N and 40° S. In this context, this paper aims to review the diversity of Dasypodini, providing diagnoses and updating the geographic and chronologic distributions of taxa. For that, numerous specimens of cingulates were analyzed and compared. The following species are considered to be valid: Anadasypus hondanus Carlini et al., 1997 (middle Miocene of Colombia); A. aequatorianus Carlini et al., 2014 (late Miocene of Ecuador); Pliodasypus vergelianus Castro et al., 2014 (middle Pliocene of Venezuela); Propraopus sulcatus (Lund, 1842) (Pleistocene–early Holocene ofArgentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador); Dasypus bellus (Simpson, 1929) (late Pliocene–late Pleistocene of the United States and Mexico); D. punctatus Lund, 1840 (late Pleistocene–early Holocene of Brazil); and the extant species D. novemcinctus Linnaeus, 1758; D. septemcinctus Linnaeus, 1758; D. hybridus (Desmarest 1804); D. kappleri Krauss, 1862; D. sabanicola Mondolfi, 1967; D. mazzai Yepes, 1933; and Cryptophractus pilosus Fitzinger, 1856, some of them with records since the late Pleistocene. Based on that, we briefly discuss evolutive, biogeographic, and environmental aspects. We corroborate that the extant Dasypodini are more diverse and larger in low latitudes. Lastly, the fossil records show that the group has been historically rectricted to temperate warm tropical and subtropical environments of the American continent.Los Dasypodini están entre los clados más basales de cingulados según análisis filogenéticos morfológicos y moleculares. Sus representantes actuales son el grupo de armadillos con el mayor número de especies y la mayor distribución geográfica latitudinal, ocupando distintos biomas aproximadamente entre los 40° N y los 40° S. En ese sentido, este trabajo tiene como objetivo revisar la diversidad de Dasypodini, proveyendo diagnosis y actualizando las distribuciones geográficas y cronológicas de los taxones. Para ello, diversos ejemplares de cingulados fueron analizados y comparados. Las siguientes especies son consideradas válidas: Anadasypus hondanus Carlini et al., 1997 (Mioceno medio de Colombia); A. aequatorianus Carlini et al., 2014 (Mioceno tardío de Ecuador); Pliodasypus vergelianus Castro et al., 2014 (Plioceno medio de Venezuela); Propraopus sulcatus (Lund, 1842) (Pleistoceno–Holoceno temprano de Argentina, Brasil, Venezuela, Uruguay, Bolivia y Ecuador); Dasypus bellus (Simpson, 1929) (Plioceno tardío–Pleistoceno tardío de Estados Unidos y México); D. punctatus Lund, 1840 (Pleistoceno tardío–Holoceno temprano de Brasil); y las especies vivientes D. novemcinctus Linnaeus, 1758; D. septemcinctus Linnaeus, 1758; D. hybridus (Desmarest 1804); D. kappleri Krauss, 1862; D. sabanicola Mondolfi, 1967; D. mazzai Yepes, 1933 y Cryptophractus pilosus Fitzinger, 1856, algunas de ellas con registros desde el Pleistoceno tardío. A base de ello, se discute brevemente aspectos evolutivos, biogeográficos y ambientales. Se corrobora que los Dasypodini actuales son más diversos y tienen mayor tamaño en bajas latitudes. A su vez, los registros fósiles muestran que el grupo estuvo históricamente restringido a ambientes tropicales y subtropicales-templado cálidos del continente americano

Comparative histology and ontogenetic change in the carapace of armadillos (Mammalia: Dasypodidae)

Among extant mammals, the presence of osteoderms is limited to armadillos (Xenarthra, Dasypodidae), being one of its distinctive features. The osteoderms are articulated to form a carapace that covers their body dorsally. In this paper we study the integumentary structures of the armadillos Chaetophractus vellerosus, Chaetophractus villosus, Euphractus sexcinctus, and Zaedyus pichiy (Euphractinae), Dasypus hybridus, and Dasypus novemcinctus (Dasypodinae) within a comparative framework, aiming to identify patterns common to the family and to the subfamilies Dasypodinae and Euphractinae, as well as peculiarities of each species. Differences between the two subfamilies were observed in the dorsal integument, related to the production of blood cells and the mobility of the carapace. The Euphractinae present more numerous and larger cavities filled with adipose tissue in the osteoderms, as well as more marginal follicles than the Dasypodinae. These provide thermal insulation that could be related to their distribution in cooler climates. The sebaceous glands associated with surface follicles are also more developed in the Euphractinae and could be related to preventing the desiccation of the cornified scales in arid climates.Fil: Krmpotic, Cecilia Mariana. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Departamento Científico de Paleontología de Vertebrados; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Ciancio, Martin Ricardo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Paleontología Vertebrados; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Laboratorio de Anatomía Comparada; ArgentinaFil: Carlini, Alfredo Armando. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Paleontología Vertebrados; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Laboratorio de Anatomía Comparada; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Castro, Mariela C.. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Scarano, Alejo Carlos. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Departamento Científico de Paleontología de Vertebrados; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda; ArgentinaFil: Barbeito, Claudio Gustavo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias. Departamento de Ciencias Básicas. Cátedra de Histología y Embriología; Argentin

A Late Cretaceous mammal from Brazil and the first radioisotopic age for the Bauru Group

In the last three decades, records of tribosphenidan mammals from India, continental Africa, Madagascar and South America have challenged the notion of a strictly Laurasian distribution of the group during the Cretaceous. Here, we describe a lower premolar from the Late Cretaceous Adamantina Formation, São Paulo State, Brazil. It differs from all known fossil mammals, except for a putative eutherian from the same geologic unity and Deccanolestes hislopi, from the Maastrichtian of India. The incompleteness of the material precludes narrowing down its taxonomic attribution further than Tribosphenida, but it is larger than most coeval mammals and shows a thin layer of parallel crystallite enamel. The new taxon helps filling two major gaps in the fossil record: the paucity of Mesozoic mammals in more northern parts of South America and of tribosphenidans in the Cretaceous of that continent. In addition, high-precision U-Pb geochronology provided a post-Turonian maximal age (≤87.8 Ma) for the type stratum, which is overlain by the dinosaur-bearing Marília Formation, constraining the age of the Adamantina Formation at the site to late Coniacian–late Maastrichtian. This represents the first radioisotopic age for the Bauru Group, a key stratigraphic unit for the study of Cretaceous tetrapods in Gondwana.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

The Bauru Basin in São Paulo and its tetrapods

Funding Information: The authors thank the editors of Derbyana, especially its Editor-in-Chief Silvio T. Hiruma, for the invitation to participate in this volume dedicated to “Advances in Paleontology”. This contribution results from FAPESP grant 2020/07997-4, to which most of the authors are affiliated. We also thank the Derbyana ad-hoc reviewers, Drs. Agustin Martinelli and Fabiano Iori, for their helpful comments to the manuscript. FIGURE 6 – Cumulative chronological distribution of the tetrapod fossil record in the Bauru Basin of São Paulo (1913-2022) compared to science and technology funding metrics and events: A – For all tetrapods; grey bars indicate total records of tables 1-5; green line indicates taxonomic richness (grey lines in Tables 1-5); pink line indicates FAPESP budget in billions of reais between 1976 and 2021 (FAPESP 2022); blue line indicates CNPq, CAPES, and FINEP budget in millions of reais between 1996 and 2018 (ESCOBAR 2019). Events indicated by arrows correspond, in chronological sequence, to the foundations of USP, “Instituto Geográfico e Geológico”, FAPESP, Unicamp, UNESP, “Instituto Geológico”, and Monte Alto Museum of Paleontology, the implementations of the Qualis list, the Lattes curriculum, the CAPES Portal de Periódicos, and the CNPq “grant”, the foundation of the Marília Museum of Paleontology, the release of the first MCT/CNPq public call for “Strengthening National Paleontology”, and the foundation of “Pedro Candolo” Museum of Paleontology. B – Separately for each recorded tetrapod group, coloured lines indicate total of records in tables 1-5 of Anura = light blue, Crocodyliformes = red, Mammalia = purple, Sauropoda = green, Squamata = yellow, Testudines = orange, and Theropoda = dark blue. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2022 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers.The Bauru Basin bears one of the best sampled tetrapod paleofaunas of Brazil, with about 70% of this diversity collected from its deposits in São Paulo. Its fossils are known since the beginning of the 20th century, coming from all stratigraphic units of the Basin cropping-out in the state, i.e., Santo Anastácio, Araçatuba, Adamantina (alternatively divided into Vale do Rio do Peixe, Presidente Prudente, and São José do Rio Preto formations), and Marília formations. Identified taxa include rare anurans, mammals, and squamates, an important set of testudines, theropods (including birds), and sauropods, in addition to one of the most diverse crocodyliform faunas known worldwide. This congregates more than fifty unique taxonomic entities, including 42 formally described species. Based on biostratigraphic correlations (including tetrapods), on few absolute ages, and other sources of evidence, the Bauru Basin deposits in São Paulo seem to be chronologically restricted to the Late Cretaceous, but further investigation is much needed. Finally, the history of research with such fossils highlights the importance of public funding for research and decentralization of university education for the advancement of science.publishersversionpublishe

Biogeography, habitat transitions and hybridization in a radiation of South American silverside fishes revealed by mitochondrial and genomic RAD data

Rivers and lake systems in the southern cone of South America have been widely influenced by historic glaciations events, carrying important implications on the evolution of aquatic organisms including prompting transitions between marine and freshwater habitats and by triggering hybridization among incipient species via waterway connectivity and stream capture events. Silverside fishes (Odontesthes) in the region comprise a radiation of 19 marine and freshwater species that have been hypothesized on the basis of morphological or mitochondrial DNA data to have either transitioned repeatedly into continental waters from the sea or colonized marine habitats following freshwater diversification. New ddRAD data presented here provide a robust framework to investigate biogeographic history and habitat transitions in Odontesthes. We show that Odontesthes silversides originally diversified in the Pacific but independently colonized the Atlantic three times, producing three independent marine-to-freshwater transitions. Our results also indicate recent introgression of marine mitochondrial haplotypes into two freshwater clades, with more recurring instances of hybridization among Atlantic- vs. Pacific-slope species. In Pacific freshwater drainages, hybridization with a marine species appears to be geographically isolated and may be related to glaciation events. Substantial structural differences of estuarine gradients between these two geographic areas may have influenced the frequency, intensity, and evolutionary effects of hybridization events.Laboratorio de Sistemática y Biología EvolutivaFacultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of the Radiation Energy in the Radio Signal of Extensive Air Showers as a Universal Estimator of Cosmic-Ray Energy

We measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8 \pm 0.7 (stat) \pm 6.7 (sys) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principle calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Supplemental material in the ancillary file

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection