Interesting Recent Papers

This post is a long time coming. I have been extremely busy the last couple of weeks.

Sandel et al. 2011. The influence of late Quaternary climate-change velocity on species endemism. Science Early Online Publication DOI: 10.1126/science.1210173. (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/10/05/science.1210173.abstract)

Sandel et al. (2011) link the velocity or rate of climate change to reduced levels of endemism among Quaternary animals. This means that in areas where climate change is occurring much more quickly endemic taxa are likely to go extinct. I imagine this to mean places like the Arctic but I have yet to read this paper (I will do so, however).

Gaillard et al. 2011. Atmospheric oxygenation caused by a change in volcanic degassing pressure. Science 478: 229-232. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7368/full/nature10460.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111013).

Gaillard et al. (2011) suggest that Precambrian oxygenation of the Earth's atmosphere was a result of a changes in volcanism, which led to the formation of the modern sulphur cycle. The formation of continents resulted in new terrestrial volcanoes that released SiO2 into the atmosphere, contributing to oxygenation.

Ungar and Sponheimer. 2011. The diets of early Hominins. Science 334: 190-193. (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6053/190.short)

Ungar and Sponheimer (2011) review the diets of early Hominins, especially microwear and stable isotope evidence.

Venditti et al. 2011. Multiple routes to mammalian diversity. Nature Early Online Publication  doi:10.1038/nature10516. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10516.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111020)

Venditti et al. (2011) investigate evolutionary rate shifts in the mammalia, finding that few clades show sustained increases in the velocity of evolution. They suggest that morphological diversification may vary much more freely than previously assumed.