![]() ![]() Received: MaAccepted: ApPublished: May 29, 2013Ĭopyright: © 2013 Zhijie Jack Tseng. Alf Museum of Paleontology, United States of America Results highlight the interaction of biomechanical and non-biomechanical factors in constraining general skull dimensions to localized functional optima through evolution.Ĭitation: Tseng ZJ (2013) Testing Adaptive Hypotheses of Convergence with Functional Landscapes: A Case Study of Bone-Cracking Hypercarnivores. Nevertheless, regions exist in the landscape where high-MA and lower-SE shapes are not represented by existing species their vacancy is observed even at higher taxonomic levels. ![]() The distribution of actual skull shapes in the landscape showed a convergent trend of plesiomorphically low-MA and moderate-SE skulls evolving towards higher-MA and moderate-SE skulls this is corroborated by FEA of 13 actual specimens. Functionality of theoretical skull shapes was studied using finite element analysis (FEA) and visualized as functional landscapes. A simple two-dimensional design space, with skull width-to-length and depth-to-length ratios as variables, was used to examine optimized shapes for two functional properties: mechanical advantage (MA) and strain energy (SE). Previous research has shown that skull deepening and widening are major evolutionary patterns in convergent bone-cracking canids and hyaenids. Bone-cracking ecomorphologies in Carnivora were used as a case study. I present a study that adopts aspects of theoretical morphology and engineering optimization to test hypotheses about adaptive convergent evolution. Morphological convergence is a well documented phenomenon in mammals, and adaptive explanations are commonly employed to infer similar functions for convergent characteristics. ![]()
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