New World Monkeys (NWM) (platyrrhines) are one of the most diverse groups of primates, occupying today a wide range of ecosystems in the American tropics and exhibiting large variations in ecology, morphology, and behavior. Although the relationships among the almost 200 living species are relatively well understood, we lack robust estimates of the timing of origin, ancestral morphology, and geographic range evolution of the clade. Herein, we integrate paleontological and molecular evidence to assess the evolutionary dynamics of extinct and extant platyrrhines. We develop novel analytical frameworks to infer the evolution of body mass, changes in latitudinal ranges through time, and species diversification rates using a phylogenetic tree of living and fossil taxa. Our results show that platyrrhines originated 510 million years earlier than previously assumed, dating back to the Middle Eocene. The estimated ancestral platyrrhine was smalluweighing 0.4 kguand matched the size of their presumed African ancestors. As the three platyrrhine families diverged, we recover a rapid change in body mass range. During the Miocene Climatic Optimum, fossil diversity peaked and platyrrhines reached their widest latitudinal range, expanding as far South as Patagonia, favored by warm and humid climate and the lower elevation of the Andes. Finally, global cooling and aridification after the middle Miocene triggered a geographic contraction of NWM and increased their extinction rates. These results unveil the full evolutionary trajectory of an iconic and ecologically important radiation of monkeys and showcase the necessity of integrating fossil and molecular data for reliably estimating evolutionary rates and trends.
1.Univ Gothenburg, Dept Biol & Environm Sci, Carl Skottsbergs Gata 22B, S-41319 Gothenburg, Sweden 2.Univ Lausanne, Dept Computat Biol, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland 3.Gothenburg Global Biodivers Ctr, Carl Skottsbergs Gata 22B, S-41319 Gothenburg, Sweden 4.Swiss Inst Bioinformat, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland 5.Inst Patagon Geol & Paleontol CCT CONICET CANPAT, Blvd Almirante Brown 2915, RA-9120 Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina 6.Univ Nacl Patagonia San Juan Bosco, Fac Ciencias Nat, RA-9100 Trelew, Chubut, Argentina 7.Univ British Columbia, Dept Zool, 2212 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada 8.Ludwig Maximilians Univ Munchen, Div Evolutionary Biol, Grosshaderner Str 2, D-82152 Munich, Germany 9.Gothenburg Bot Garden, Carl Skottsbergs Gata 22A, S-41319 Gothenburg, Sweden 10.Harvard Univ, Dept Organism & Evolutionary Biol, 26 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
Recommended Citation:
Silvestro, Daniele,Tejedor, Marcelo F.,Serrano-Serrano, Martha L.,et al. Early Arrival and Climatically-Linked Geographic Expansion of New World Monkeys from Tiny African Ancestors[J]. SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY,2019-01-01,68(1):78-92