Cited by 2,082Evolution and Paleontology StudiesPlant Diversity and EvolutionPaleontology and Evolutionary Biology

The delayed rise of present-day mammals

Bininda-Emonds, Olaf R. P., Cardillo, Marcel, Jones, Kate E., MacPhee, Ross D. E., Beck, Robin M. D., Grenyer, Richard, Price, Samantha A., Vos, Rutger A. +2 more·2007·Nature

Abstract

Did the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event, by eliminating non-avian dinosaurs and most of the existing fauna, trigger the evolutionary radiation of present-day mammals? Here we construct, date and analyse a species-level phylogeny of nearly all extant Mammalia to bring a new perspective to this question. Our analyses of how extant lineages accumulated through time show that net per-lineage diversification rates barely changed across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary. Instead, these rates spiked significantly with the origins of the currently recognized placental superorders and orders approximately 93 million years ago, before falling and remaining low until accelerating again throughout the Eocene and Oligocene epochs. Our results show that the phylogenetic 'fuses' leading to the explosion of extant placental orders are not only very much longer than suspected previously, but also challenge the hypothesis that the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event had a major, direct influence on the diversification of today's mammals.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/nature05634

Cites

45 of 45 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The monotreme-theria divergence time is estimated to be 166 Myr ago.

    “Estimates of the monotreme-theria divergence time range between 160 and 210 Myr ago; here we will use 166 Myr ago, recently estimated from fossil and molecular data 2 .”

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 46 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Bininda-Emonds, O. R. P., Cardillo, M., Jones, K. E., MacPhee, R. D. E., Beck, R. M. D., Grenyer, R., Price, S. A., Vos, R. A., Gittleman, J. L., & Purvis, A.
Affiliations
  • Australian National University (AU)
  • Zoological Society of London (GB)
  • American Museum of Natural History (US)
  • UNSW Sydney (AU)
  • Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (GB)
  • National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (US)
  • University of British Columbia (CA)
  • University of Georgia (US)
  • Imperial College London (GB)
Venue
Nature
Published
2007-03-29
Volume
446
Issue
7135
Pages
507-512
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W2036507321
Cited by
2,082
References
46
Citations by year
2026: 22 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 39 · 2022: 42 · 2021: 68 · 2020: 120 · 2019: 137 · 2018: 93 · 2017: 97 · 2016: 133 · 2015: 145 · 2014: 148 · 2013: 151 · 2012: 171
FWCI
118.98
Type
journal article
Language
en
Update notices
erratum (2008-11-13)
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Natural Environment Research Council (cpb010001, NE/C517992/1)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Plant Diversity and Evolution
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology
Keywords
mammalian diversification, end-Cretaceous mass extinction, Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, placental mammals, mammalian phylogeny, diversification rates, non-avian dinosaurs, molecular phylogeny, mammalian origins
MeSH terms
Animals, Biological Evolution, Fossils, Mammals, Models, Biological, Phylogeny, Time Factors, Dinosaurs, History, Ancient, Genetic Speciation, Extinction, Biological

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review