Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Dev Dyn. 2019 Nov;248(11):1129-1143. doi: 10.1002/dvdy.90. Epub 2019 Aug 6.
The neotropical leaf-nosed bats (Chiroptera, Phyllostomidae) are an ecologically diverse group of mammals with distinctive morphological adaptations associated with specialized modes of feeding. The dramatic skull shape changes between related species result from changes in the craniofacial development process, which brings into focus the nature of the underlying evolutionary developmental processes.
In this study, we use three-dimensional geometric morphometrics to describe, quantify, and compare morphological modifications unfolding during evolution and development of phyllostomid bats. We examine how changes in development of the cranium may contribute to the evolution of the bat craniofacial skeleton. Comparisons of ontogenetic trajectories to evolutionary trajectories reveal two separate evolutionary developmental growth processes contributing to modifications in skull morphogenesis: acceleration and hypermorphosis.
These findings are consistent with a role for peramorphosis, a form of heterochrony, in the evolution of bat dietary specialists.
新热带叶鼻蝠（翼手目，叶鼻蝠科）是一个生态多样化的哺乳动物群体，具有与专门的进食方式相关的独特形态适应。相关物种之间显著的头骨形状变化源于颅面发育过程的变化，这凸显了潜在进化发育过程的本质。
在这项研究中，我们使用三维几何形态测量学来描述、量化和比较叶鼻蝠进化和发育过程中展开的形态修饰。我们研究了颅骨发育的变化如何有助于蝙蝠颅面骨骼的进化。对发育轨迹与进化轨迹的比较揭示了两个独立的进化发育生长过程，有助于颅骨形态发生的修饰：加速和超发育。
这些发现与翼手目食虫类特化的进化中的假成体发生（一种种系发生的变化形式）的作用一致。
