Rapid Dwarfing of an Insular Mammal – The Feral Cattle of Amsterdam Island

Abstract The island rule describes a graded trend in insular populations of vertebrates from gigantism in small species to dwarfism in large species. The dwarfing of large mammals on islands has been observed both in the present fauna and in the fossil record. Elephants, hippopotami, deer, and other...

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Autores principales:	Roberto Rozzi, Mark V. Lomolino
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/cbff549047984df1b1816f1982343063
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:cbff549047984df1b1816f19823430632021-12-02T11:40:31ZRapid Dwarfing of an Insular Mammal – The Feral Cattle of Amsterdam Island10.1038/s41598-017-08820-22045-2322https://doaj.org/article/cbff549047984df1b1816f19823430632017-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08820-2https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract The island rule describes a graded trend in insular populations of vertebrates from gigantism in small species to dwarfism in large species. The dwarfing of large mammals on islands has been observed both in the present fauna and in the fossil record. Elephants, hippopotami, deer, and other species became dwarfed on islands scattered all over the world, from the Mediterranean Sea to Indonesia, from the Eastern to Western Pacific Ocean, from the Caribbean to Canary Islands. The most rapid and well documented cases of island dwarfing known thus far took place over thousands of years. Here, we describe a rapid example of dwarfing of a large mammal - the feral cattle of Amsterdam Island, southern Indian Ocean, which dwarfed to about three quarters of its body size in slightly more than one century. This population provides us with a rare opportunity to assess the rapidity of demographic, life history, and morphological responses of large mammals to a very isolated and ecologically simple, insular environment.Roberto RozziMark V. LomolinoNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Roberto Rozzi Mark V. Lomolino Rapid Dwarfing of an Insular Mammal – The Feral Cattle of Amsterdam Island
description	Abstract The island rule describes a graded trend in insular populations of vertebrates from gigantism in small species to dwarfism in large species. The dwarfing of large mammals on islands has been observed both in the present fauna and in the fossil record. Elephants, hippopotami, deer, and other species became dwarfed on islands scattered all over the world, from the Mediterranean Sea to Indonesia, from the Eastern to Western Pacific Ocean, from the Caribbean to Canary Islands. The most rapid and well documented cases of island dwarfing known thus far took place over thousands of years. Here, we describe a rapid example of dwarfing of a large mammal - the feral cattle of Amsterdam Island, southern Indian Ocean, which dwarfed to about three quarters of its body size in slightly more than one century. This population provides us with a rare opportunity to assess the rapidity of demographic, life history, and morphological responses of large mammals to a very isolated and ecologically simple, insular environment.
format	article
author	Roberto Rozzi Mark V. Lomolino
author_facet	Roberto Rozzi Mark V. Lomolino
author_sort	Roberto Rozzi
title	Rapid Dwarfing of an Insular Mammal – The Feral Cattle of Amsterdam Island
title_short	Rapid Dwarfing of an Insular Mammal – The Feral Cattle of Amsterdam Island
title_full	Rapid Dwarfing of an Insular Mammal – The Feral Cattle of Amsterdam Island
title_fullStr	Rapid Dwarfing of an Insular Mammal – The Feral Cattle of Amsterdam Island
title_full_unstemmed	Rapid Dwarfing of an Insular Mammal – The Feral Cattle of Amsterdam Island
title_sort	rapid dwarfing of an insular mammal – the feral cattle of amsterdam island
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/cbff549047984df1b1816f1982343063
work_keys_str_mv	AT robertorozzi rapiddwarfingofaninsularmammaltheferalcattleofamsterdamisland AT markvlomolino rapiddwarfingofaninsularmammaltheferalcattleofamsterdamisland
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Rapid Dwarfing of an Insular Mammal – The Feral Cattle of Amsterdam Island

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