Evolution and Diversity
Lionel Hautier
Research Associate, University Museum of Zoology
Email: ljh75@cam.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 (0) 1223 769260
My research entailed the use of paleontological, developmental, and morphometrical data to consider recent phylogenetical results. Placental mammals are an extraordinarily successful radiation, derived from a single common ancestor that lived approximately 125 million years ago. The anatomy and developmental biology of this common ancestor are central to understanding the success of this radiation. The recent recognition of afrotherians and xenarthrans as basal mammals indicates that developmental and morphological study of these groups provides important data that has been overlooked hitherto. I have previously focused on morphological diversity in rodents, but I am actually interested in xenartrans and afrotherians evolution and development. Because biological shapes are often complex and evolve depending on several internal constraints, they must be assessed using integrative methods (i.e. anatomical, morphometrical, and ontogenetical data).
My ongoing research focuses on:
- Investigating skeleto-dental development in afrotherian and xenarthran mammals to test an hypothetic departure of southern placentals from the patterns seen in other mammals. This will in turn lead to the capacity to document connections between genotype and phenotype.
- Testing the role of selection characterizing similar morphological evolutions toward news habitats and diet between different clades of extant and extinct mammals (i.e. Rodentia, Afrotheria, and Xenarthra).
- Assessing the evolution of the zygomasseteric construction of both extinct and extant mammals in using morphological (osteological and myological), morphometrical, and palaeontological évidence.
Selected publications
- Hautier L, Stansfield FJ, Allen WRT, Asher RJ. (2012) Skeletal development in the African elephant and ossification timing in placental mammals. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. In press
- Hautier L, Weisbecker V, Goswami A, Knight F, Kardjilov N, Asher R. (2011) Skeletal ossification and sequence heterochrony in xenarthran evolution. Evolution & Development, 13: 460-476.
- Hautier L, Lebrun R, Saksiri S, Michaux JJ, Vianey-Liaud M, Marivaux L. (2011) Hystricognathy vs sciurognathy in the rodent jaw: a new morphometric assessment of hystricognathy applied to living fossil Laonastes (Rodentia, Diatomyidae). PLoS ONE, 6(4): e18698. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018698.
- Hautier L, Weisbecker V, Sanchez Villagra M, Goswami A, Asher R. (2010). Skeletal development in sloths and the evolution of mammalian vertebral patterning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 107: 18903-18908.
- Hautier L. (2010). Masticatory muscle architecture in the gundi Ctenodactylus vali (Mammalia, Rodentia). Mammalia, 74: 153-152.
- Hautier L, Clavel J, Lazzari V, Gomes Rodrigues H, Vianey-Liaud M. (2010). Changes in the direction of mastication during mammalian evolution, and relationships with the remodeling of the masticatory apparatus: the case of the Issiodoromyinae (Rodentia, Mammalia). Palaios, 25: 4-11.
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