Insular giant leporid matured later than predicted by scaling
Meike Köhler,
Carmen Nacarino-Meneses,
Josep Quintana Cardona,
Walter Arnold,
Gabrielle Stalder,
Franz Suchentrunk,
Salvador Moyà-Solà
Affiliations
Meike Köhler
ICREA Pg. Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain; ICP Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Edifici Z, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, C/ de Les Columnes, s/n., 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain; BABVE (Departament de Biologia Animal i d’Ecologia) Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Cerdanyola, Spain; Corresponding author
Carmen Nacarino-Meneses
ICP Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Edifici Z, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, C/ de Les Columnes, s/n., 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
Josep Quintana Cardona
ICP Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Edifici Z, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, C/ de Les Columnes, s/n., 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
Walter Arnold
Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, Department of Interdisciplinary Life Sciences, University of Veterinary Medicine, Savoyenstraße 1, Vienna A-1160, Austria
Gabrielle Stalder
Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, Department of Interdisciplinary Life Sciences, University of Veterinary Medicine, Savoyenstraße 1, Vienna A-1160, Austria
Franz Suchentrunk
Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, Department of Interdisciplinary Life Sciences, University of Veterinary Medicine, Savoyenstraße 1, Vienna A-1160, Austria
Salvador Moyà-Solà
ICREA Pg. Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain; ICP Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Edifici Z, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, C/ de Les Columnes, s/n., 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain; BABVE (Departament de Biologia Animal i d’Ecologia) Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Cerdanyola, Spain
Summary: The island syndrome describes morphological, behavioral, and life history traits that evolve in parallel in endemic insular organisms. A basic axiom of the island syndrome is that insular endemics slow down their pace of life. Although this is already confirmed for insular dwarfs, a slow life history in giants may not be adaptive, but merely a consequence of increasing body size.We tested this question in the fossil insular giant leporid Nuralagus rex. Using bone histology, we constructed both a continental extant taxon model derived from experimentally fluorochrome-labeled Lepus europaeus to calibrate life history events, and a growth model for the insular taxon. N. rex grew extremely slowly and delayed maturity well beyond predictions from continental phylogenetically corrected scaling models. Our results support the life history axiom of the island syndrome as generality for insular mammals, regardless of whether they have evolved into dwarfs or giants.
