Cenozoic climate change and the evolution of North American mammalian predator ecomorphology

The trend of global cooling across the Cenozoic transformed the North American landscape from closed forest to more open grasslands, resulting in dietary adaptations in herbivores in response to shifting resources. In contrast, the material properties of the predator food source, muscle, skin, and bone, have remained constant over this transition, suggesting a corresponding lack of change in predator dietary adaptations. We investigate the North American mammal predator fossil record using a tooth shape metric and body mass, predicting that the former would exhibit stability. Instead, we found that mean molar morphology became more blade-like, with our tooth shape metric sharply increasing in the late Eocene and remaining high from the Oligocene onward. Subsequent tests in extant carnivorans reveal taxa with more blade-like teeth are prevalent in more open environments. Our results reveal an unexpected functional shift among North American predators in response to large-scale environmen..., Data is a combination of occurrence, morphological, diet and habitat data. The occurrence were collected from the New and Old Wrolds (NOW) and MIOMAP fossil mammal databases. The morphological data was collected from museum speciemens and published images. Diet and habitat data was collected from the liturature. , , # Cenozoic climate change and the evolution of North American mammalian predator ecomorphology supplemental data

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2fqz612xw](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2fqz612xw)

The dataset contains the minimum age, maximum age, body mass, and relative blade length (RBL) for 393 North American mammalian predators. It also includes body mass, RBL, dietary category and habitat type for 190 extant Carnivorans. 

## Description of the data and file structure

The datafile is an excel sheet with seven sheets. 

Sheet 1: Fossil Data - contains minimum age, maximum age, body mass, m1L (first lower molar length) or largest molar (for creodonts) and relative blade length (RBL) for 392 North American mammalian predators. Units for minimum and maximum age are in Ma, m1L or largest molar is in mm, and body mass is in kg. 

Sheet 2: Extant Data - contains body mass, RBL, dietary category and habitat type for 190 extant Carnivorans. 

Sheet 3: References (Extant) - contains refere...