Volume 44 December 2009

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Browsing Volume 44 December 2009 by Author "Kemp, Tom S."

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    Phylogenetic interrelationships and pattern of evolution of the therapsids: testing for polytomy
    (Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009-12) Kemp, Tom S.
    There is little agreement on the interrelationships of the major therapsid subtaxa because none of the variously proposed sister-group relationships are supported by clearly defined, unambiguously distributed morphological characters. Rather than pursue a new cladistic analysis here, the hypothesis is explored that the lack of an agreed cladogram is because there was a polytomy at the base of the therapsid radiation that is not amenable to positive testing by conventional morphological cladistics, but that can be tested in four ways. The virtually simultaneous appearance of all the lineages except Cynodontia in the Middle Permian stratigraphic record supports the hypothesis. The palaeogeographic record, which shows a combination of taxa with first occurrences in different parts of Pangaea also supports it, though this is not strong evidence. The palaeoenvironmental record supports the polytomous hypothesis strongly by providing evidence of a coincidence between the start of the therapsid radiation and the appearance of a new suite of ecological opportunities for diversification within higher latitudes. Finally, a functional correlation analysis of the characters associated with feeding, and the reconstruction of lineages of functionally integrated organisms offers strong support by indicating that no two of the four respective lineages, Dinocephalia, Gorgonopsia, Anomodontia and Therocephalia, could have shared a functionally feasible common ancestral stage subsequent to a hypothetical ancestor at a biarmosuchian grade. The exception is Cynodontia and Therocephalia, which are inferred to have shared such a more recent common ancestral stage, and therefore to be sister-groups in the taxon Eutheriodonta.