Morphological disparity of mammalian limb bones throughout the Cenozoic: the role of biotic and abiotic factors

Mammals exhibit ecology-related diversity in long bone morphology, revealing an ample spectrum of adaptations both within and between clades. Their occupation of unique ecological niches in postcranial morphology is thought to have occurred at different chronological phases in relation to abiotic factors such as climate and biotic interactions amongst major clades. Mammalian morphologies rapidly evolved throughout the Cenozoic, with several orders following different paths in locomotory adaptations. We assessed morphological variation in limb proportions for a rich sample of extant and fossil large mammalian clades (mainly carnivores and ungulates) to test associations with ecological adaptations and to identify temporal patterns of diversification. Phylogenetic relationships among species were incorporated into the analysis of limb bone proportions, showing significant morphological changes in relation to species substrate preference. Major climatic events appeared to have no temporal ..., Data collection
Morphological data
To compute the analyses of the study entitled  \"Morphological disparity of mammalian limb bones throughout the cenozoic: the role of biotic and abiotic factors”, we assembled from the literature and published databases 793 humerus, 805 radius, 668 femur, and 663 tibia lengths belonging to 246 living and 177 fossil species. These data were combined into the brachial index (i.e., radius to humerus ratio) and the crural index (i.e., tibia to femur ratio). Also, because the body mass of fossil species is usually estimated using long bone length, to account for the allometry in the analyses, we also collected the greatest skull length (1883 values), which is a good predictor of body mass. Collected data represented 423 species from the order Acreodi (1), Artiodactyla (206), Carnivora (178), Cimolesta (4), Condylarthra (3), Hyaenodonta (5), Oxyaenodonta (4), Dinocerata (1), Litopterna (1), Perissodactyla (59) and Procreodi (2) spanning throughout the Cenozo..., , # Data from: Morphological disparity of mammalian limb bones throughout the Cenozoic: the role of biotic and abiotic factors

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8gtht76sp.](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8gtht76sp)

We submitted the raw data (**Data 1.csv**), species phylogenetic position and ecological categories with references (**Data 2.csv**), node age references (**Data 3.csv**), time bin intervals for tips (**Data 4.csv**), time bin intervals for tips plus nodes (**Data 5. csv**), disparity computed using data from the swapped – tree (**Data 6.zip**).

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## Descriptions

**Data 1- Rawdata**

* *Species:* species name
* *Locality*: the paleontological site where the specimen was found
* *Cat:* museum catalogue number
* *Humerus (mm)*: humerus length in millimetres
* *Radius (mm)*: radius length in millimetres
* *Femur  (mm):* femur length in millimetres
* *Tibia  (mm)*: tibia length in millimetres
* *Brachial index (R/H)*: brachial index computed as the radius to humerus ratio 
* *Cr...