The evolutionary ecology of body size, diet, and diversity in Cenozoic European large mammal communities

<p dir="ltr">Body size and diet are important traits in mammals, determining how they interact ecologically with other species and their environment. Although body size has increased evolutionarily in some key groups, how it evolves when species interact is unknown. In addition, it is also not known how tooth morphology correlates with body size and how diversity evolves in response to these changes. To solve these questions, 30 fossil mammal sites across the Cenozoic of Europe were compiled from the literature to create a time series. Each site had ≥10 terrestrial large mammal species with at least one carnivore and one herbivore. Body size and diet specialization was captured by recording length and width measurements of the premolars and molars for 505 species (155 carnivores and 350 herbivores). Finally, fossil specimen counts for each locality were tabulated to allow estimating diversity with different statistical methods. Carnivorous and herbivorous mammals co-evolve in response to each other, resulting in an increase towards larger body sizes. In addition, the average tooth morphology of carnivore and herbivore guilds is highly divergent at all times and regardless of body size. Therefore, diversity and community structure remain static through time, even as these traits change in mammal communities.</p>