Body Size in Mammalian Paleobiology: Estimation and Biological Implications

by John Damuth, Bruce J. MacFadden

Overview

This valuable collection of essays presents and evaluates techniques of body-mass estimation and reviews current and potential applications of body-size estimates in paleobiology. Papers discuss explicitly the errors and biases of various regression techniques and predictor variables, and the identification of functionally similar groups of species for improving the accuracy of estimates. At the same time other chapters review and discuss the physiological, ecological, and behavioral correlates of body size in extant mammals; the significance of body-mass distributions in mammalian faunas; and the ecology and evolution of body size in particular paleofaunas. Coverage is particularly detailed for carnivores, primates, and ungulates, but information is also presented on marsupials, rodents, and proboscideans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521360999
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/30/1990
Pages:	412
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.33(h) x 1.18(d)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction J. Damuth and B. MacFadden; Part I. The Biological Significance of Mammalian Body Size: 2. The physiological significance of body size B. K. McNab; 3. The behavioral/ecological significance of body size J. F. Eisenberg; 4. The functional anatomy of body weight T. Grand; 5. Evolutionary strategies and body size in a guild of mammals V. C. Maiorana; 6. The cotton rat model R. A. Martin; Part II. The Estimation of Mammalian Body Mass: 7. Methods and problems in estimating body size in fossil primates W. Jungers; 8. Structural allometry of the lower limb bones in the Anthropoidea C. Ruff; 9. Skeletal and dental predictors of body weight in carnivores B. Van Valkenburgh; 10. Estimates of body size for insular dwarf mammoths V. L. Roth; 11. Skeletal dimensions of ungulates as predictors of body weight K. M. Scott; 12. Correlation of body weight in ungulates with cranio-dental variables C. Janis; 13. Problems with using tooth size to estimate the body size of fossil mammals M. Fortelius; 14. Problems in estimating body masses of archaic fossil ungulates using dental measurements J. Damuth; 15. Body-size estimates and size distribution of ungulates (Mammalia) from the Late Miocene Love Bone Bed, Florida B. J. MacFadden and R. C. Hulbert; 16. Summary: discussion and recommendations for body-mass estimation J. Damuth and B. J. MacFadden; Appendices: data and equations for body-mass estimation.

Editorial Reviews

"...reveals how much wider is the scope of palaeobiology than just humans and human origins, or even primates. It is a book with an honest approach, always vigilant that it is treading along a slippery path. Practioners of palaeobiology will find it useful for having assembled a recondite set of facts and for its deliberate cautiousness." Nature

"...valuable because it identifies some of the promise and the problems of a new research program in paleobiology..." Quarterly Review of Biology

"...provides a very useful and significant reference about a variety of mammalian groups and a variety of methodological approaches to the estimation of body size in these taxa." Matthew J. Ravosa, International Journal of Primatology

From the Publisher