Antler allometry, the Irish elk and Gould revisited
Tsuboi M, Kopperud BT, Matschiner M, Grabowski M, Syrowatka C, Pélabon C, Hansen TF. 2024. Antler allometry, the Irish elk and Gould revisited. Evolutionary Biology. 51, 149–165.
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Journal Article
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Author
Tsuboi, Masahito;
Kopperud, Bjørn Tore;
Matschiner, Michael;
Grabowski, Mark;
Syrowatka, ChrsitineISTA;
Pélabon, Christophe;
Hansen, Thomas F.
Department
Abstract
The huge antlers of the extinct Irish elk have invited evolutionary speculation since Darwin. In the 1970s, Stephen Jay Gould presented the first extensive data on antler size in the Irish elk and combined these with comparative data from other deer to test the hypothesis that the gigantic antlers were the outcome of a positive allometry that constrained large-bodied deer to have proportionally even larger antlers. He concluded that the Irish elk had antlers as predicted for its size and interpreted this within his emerging framework of developmental constraints as an explanatory factor in evolution. Here we reanalyze antler allometry based on new morphometric data for 57 taxa of the family Cervidae. We also present a new phylogeny for the Cervidae, which we use for comparative analyses. In contrast to Gould, we find that the antlers of Irish elk were larger than predicted from the allometry within the true deer, Cervini, as analyzed by Gould, but follow the allometry across Cervidae as a whole. After dissecting the discrepancy, we reject the allometric-constraint hypothesis because, contrary to Gould, we find no similarity between static and evolutionary allometries, and because we document extensive non-allometric evolution of antler size across the Cervidae.
Publishing Year
Date Published
2024-03-01
Journal Title
Evolutionary Biology
Acknowledgement
Open access funding provided by University of Oslo (incl Oslo University Hospital).
We thank Adrian Lister, Louis Tomsett, Roberto Portela Miguez and Roula Pappa (NHMUK), Brian O'Toole and Eileen Westwig (AMNH), Daniela Kalthoff (NHRM), Alexander Bibl and Zachos Frank (NHMW), Darrin Lunde and John Ososky (NMNH), Matthew Parkes and Nigel Monaghan (NMI), Elizabetta Cioppi and Luca Bellucci (IGF), and Yoshihiro Tanaka and Hiroyuki Taruno (OMNH), who helped us in obtaining the museum data, and a special thanks to Jørgen Sikkeland (NTNU NHM) for assistance in obtaining the ontogenetic data for the red deer. We thank Olja Toljagic and Kjetil L. Voje for discussions, Ayumu Tsuboi for assistance with data collection, and Jean-Michel Gaillard and the anonymous reviewers for comments on the manuscript. We thank the Centre of Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters for hosting us during the academic year of 2019/2020 when much of the analysis and writing were done. MT was funded by JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists (201603238).
Volume
51
Page
149-165
ISSN
eISSN
IST-REx-ID
Cite this
Tsuboi M, Kopperud BT, Matschiner M, et al. Antler allometry, the Irish elk and Gould revisited. Evolutionary Biology. 2024;51:149-165. doi:10.1007/s11692-023-09624-1
Tsuboi, M., Kopperud, B. T., Matschiner, M., Grabowski, M., Syrowatka, C., Pélabon, C., & Hansen, T. F. (2024). Antler allometry, the Irish elk and Gould revisited. Evolutionary Biology. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-023-09624-1
Tsuboi, Masahito, Bjørn Tore Kopperud, Michael Matschiner, Mark Grabowski, Chrsitine Syrowatka, Christophe Pélabon, and Thomas F. Hansen. “Antler Allometry, the Irish Elk and Gould Revisited.” Evolutionary Biology. Springer Nature, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-023-09624-1.
M. Tsuboi et al., “Antler allometry, the Irish elk and Gould revisited,” Evolutionary Biology, vol. 51. Springer Nature, pp. 149–165, 2024.
Tsuboi M, Kopperud BT, Matschiner M, Grabowski M, Syrowatka C, Pélabon C, Hansen TF. 2024. Antler allometry, the Irish elk and Gould revisited. Evolutionary Biology. 51, 149–165.
Tsuboi, Masahito, et al. “Antler Allometry, the Irish Elk and Gould Revisited.” Evolutionary Biology, vol. 51, Springer Nature, 2024, pp. 149–65, doi:10.1007/s11692-023-09624-1.
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