[dinosaur] Oviraptorosaurian skull evolution

Ben Creisler
[email protected]

A new paper:

Waisum Ma,  Stephen L. Brusatte,  Junchang Lü  & Manabu Sakamoto (2019)
The skull evolution of oviraptorosaurian dinosaurs: the role of
niche‐partitioning in diversification.
Journal of Evolutionary Biology (advance online publication)
doi:  https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__doi.org_10.1111_jeb.13557&d=DwIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=OZrSlysbBWaINgJZZ3KFybfjzH2sLYw7ShgGJo8zhVs&s=34pAwwTo56tZAwGwLxunHrCiANY5bA-_sNVH8x-HnCs&e= 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__onlinelibrary.wiley.com_doi_10.1111_jeb.13557&d=DwIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=OZrSlysbBWaINgJZZ3KFybfjzH2sLYw7ShgGJo8zhVs&s=ESA6qzRJFQjT-tGTDvNCu9nXYgjJw3EqYnuHk0GYDNo&e= 


Oviraptorosaurs are bird‐like theropod dinosaurs that thrived in the final
pre‐extinction ecosystems during the latest Cretaceous, and the beaked,
toothless skulls of derived species are regarded as some of the most
peculiar among dinosaurs. Their aberrant morphologies are hypothesized to
have been caused by rapid evolution triggered by an ecological/biological
driver, but little is known about how their skull shapes and functional
abilities diversified. Here, we use quantitative techniques to study
oviraptorosaur skull form and mandibular function. We demonstrate that the
snout is particularly variable, that mandibular and upper/lower beak form
are significantly correlated with phylogeny, and that there is a strong and
significant correlation between mandibular function and mandible/lower beak
shape, suggesting a form‐function association. The form‐function
relationship and phylogenetic signals, along with a moderate allometric
signal in lower beak form, indicate that similar mechanisms governed beak
shape in oviraptorosaurs and extant birds. The two derived oviraptorosaur
clades, oviraptorids and caenagnathids, are significantly separated in
morphospace and functional space, indicating that they partitioned niches.
Oviraptorids coexisting in the same ecosystem are also widely spread in
morphological and functional space, suggesting that they finely partitioned
feeding niches, whereas caenagnathids exhibit extreme disparity in beak
size. The diversity of skull form and function was likely key to the
diversification and evolutionary success of oviraptorosaurs in the latest
Cretaceous.

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