FUNCTIONAL MORPHOLOGY, BIOMECHANICS, AND EVOLUTION OF RUMINANT MAMMALS

Ruminant mammals, including the families Bovidae, Cervidae, Tragulidae, Moschidae, Antilocapridae, and Giraffidae, display incredible past and present diversity in morphology, ecology, and behavior. They inhabit an impressive range of environments across North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and compel the fascination of naturalists and researchers alike with their charismatic social behavior and conspicuous cranial appendages. I explore the drivers and consequences of this spectacular diversity through a comparative morphological framework, biomechanical modeling approaches, and semi-parametric and likelihood-based methods for estimating state-dependent diversification rates across the ruminant phylogeny. Together, these investigations provide evidence for adaptation via correlated evolution of morphological and behavioral traits, highlight the clade’s rich evolutionary history, and establish promising avenues for further research into the evolution and maintenance of diversity in ruminant mammals

Stress Contour Maps

Screencaps of all models with effective stress contour maps in Previe

AXIS stls pre-analysis

STL files of axis vertebrae for all species. Meshes are watertight (transverse foramina and vertebral foramina have been filled), smoothed, and reduced to 20k triangles in preparation for spherical harmonics analysis

ATLAS landmarks

Landmark files for all specimens used for registration of 3D atlas meshes in spherical harmonics analysis

SPHARM_PCA_PGLS_analysis_5-21-2019

This file contains the R code for the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) performed using the spherical harmonics coefficients for the atlas and axis datasets, as well as code used for phylogenetic generalized least squares (PGLS) analyses and data visualization

AXIS landmarks

Landmark files for all specimens used for registration of 3D axis meshes in spherical harmonics analysis