Bromham Lindell, Cardillo Marcel
Centre for Macroevolution and Macroecology, School of Botany and Zoology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia.
Biol Lett. 2007 Aug 22;3(4):398-400. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0113.
When the diminutive skeleton of Homo floresiensis was found on the Indonesian island of Flores, it was interpreted as an island dwarf, conforming to the 'island rule' that large animals evolve smaller size on islands, but small animals tend to get larger. However, previous studies of the island rule have not included primates, so the extent to which insular primate populations undergo size change was unknown. We use a comparative database of 39 independently derived island endemic primate species and subspecies to demonstrate that primates do conform to the island rule: small-bodied primates tend to get larger on islands, and large-bodied primates get smaller. Furthermore, larger species undergo a proportionally greater reduction in size on islands.
当在印度尼西亚弗洛勒斯岛上发现弗洛勒斯人矮小的骨骼时，它被解释为岛屿侏儒，符合“岛屿法则”，即大型动物在岛屿上进化出较小的体型，而小型动物则往往变得更大。然而，先前对岛屿法则的研究并未包括灵长类动物，因此岛屿灵长类种群体型变化的程度尚不清楚。我们使用一个包含39个独立衍生的岛屿特有灵长类物种和亚种的比较数据库来证明，灵长类动物确实符合岛屿法则：体型较小的灵长类动物在岛屿上往往会变大，而体型较大的灵长类动物则会变小。此外，体型较大的物种在岛屿上体型缩小的比例更大。
