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Extrapolating body masses in large terrestrial vertebrates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2017

Nicolás E. Campione Open the ORCID record for Nicolás E. Campione [Opens in a new window]
Nicolás E. Campione*
Affiliation:
Palaeobiology Programme, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Villavägen 16, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Despite more than a century of interest, body-mass estimation in the fossil record remains contentious, particularly when estimating the body mass of taxa outside the size scope of living animals. One estimation approach uses humeral and femoral (stylopodial) circumferences collected from extant (living) terrestrial vertebrates to infer the body masses of extinct tetrapods through scaling models. When applied to very large extinct taxa, extant-based scaling approaches incur obvious methodological extrapolations leading some to suggest that they may overestimate the body masses of large terrestrial vertebrates. Here, I test the implicit assumption of such assertions: that a quadratic model provides a better fit to the combined humeral and femoral circumferences-to-body mass relationship. I then examine the extrapolation potential of these models through a series of subsetting exercises in which lower body-mass sets are used to estimate larger sets. Model fitting recovered greater support for the original linear model, and a nonsignificant second-degree term indicates that the quadratic relationship is statistically linear. Nevertheless, some statistical support was obtained for the quadratic model, and application of the quadratic model to a series of dinosaurs provides lower mass estimates at larger sizes that are more consistent with recent estimates using a minimum convex-hull (MCH) approach. Given this consistency, a quadratic model may be preferred at this time. Still, caution is advised; extrapolations of quadratic functions are unpredictable compared with linear functions. Further research testing the MCH approach (e.g., the use of a universal upscaling factor) may shed light on the linear versus quadratic nature of the relationship between the combined femoral and humeral circumferences and body mass.

Type
Methods in Paleobiology
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , November 2017 , pp. 693 - 699
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 The Paleontological Society. All rights reserved 

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