Cerda Ignacio Alejandro, Chinsamy Anusuya, Pol Diego, Apaldetti Cecilia, Otero Alejandro, Powell Jaime Eduardo, Martínez Ricardo Nestor
CONICET-Instituto de Investigaciónen Paleobiología y Geología, Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Museo Carlos Ameghino, Cipolletti, Río Negro, Argentina.
University of Cape Town, Department of Biological Sciences, South Africa.
PLoS One. 2017 Jun 27;12(6):e0179707. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179707. eCollection 2017.
Sauropod dinosaurs include the largest terrestrial animals and are considered to have uninterrupted rapid rates of growth, which differs from their more basal relatives, which have a slower cyclical growth. Here we examine the bone microstructure of several sauropodomorph dinosaurs, including basal taxa, as well as the more derived sauropods. Although our results agree that the plesiomorphic condition for Sauropodomorpha is cyclical growth dynamics, we found that the hypothesized dichotomy between the growth patterns of basal and more derived sauropodomorphs is not supported. Here, we show that sauropod-like growth dynamics of uninterrupted rapid growth also occurred in some basal sauropodomorphs, and that some basal sauropods retained the plesiomorphic cyclical growth patterns. Among the sauropodomorpha it appears that the basal taxa exploited different growth strategies, but the more derived Eusauropoda successfully utilized rapid, uninterrupted growth strategies.
蜥脚类恐龙是地球上最大的陆地动物，被认为具有持续快速的生长速度，这与它们更为原始的亲属不同，后者的生长呈较慢的周期性。在此，我们研究了几种蜥脚形亚目恐龙的骨骼微观结构，包括基础类群以及更为进化的蜥脚类恐龙。尽管我们的研究结果一致认为蜥脚形亚目的原始状态是周期性生长动态，但我们发现，基础类和更为进化的蜥脚形亚目恐龙生长模式之间假设的二分法并不成立。我们在此表明，一些基础蜥脚形亚目恐龙也具有类似蜥脚类恐龙的持续快速生长动态，并且一些基础蜥脚类恐龙保留了原始的周期性生长模式。在蜥脚形亚目中，似乎基础类群采用了不同的生长策略，但更为进化的真蜥脚亚目成功地利用了快速、持续的生长策略。
