Using salamanders as model taxa to understand vertebrate feeding constraints during the late Devonian water-to-land transition

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · 5 authors, 5 centres

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TL;DR

This study used salamanders as functional analogues to model how early tetrapods may have fed during the water-to-land transition. The central finding is that terrestrial feeding was possible before the evolution of flexible tongues, supported by complex chewing behaviours observed in salamander ontogeny.

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This comparative evolutionary study used ontogenetic water-to-land transitions in salamanders as functional analogues to model potential feeding behaviours of stem and early tetrapods. This suggests terrestrial feeding may have been possible before flexible tongues evolved, challenging the notion that a muscular tongue was a prerequisite for land-based feeding.

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biomedical research

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ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10577038

Using salamanders as model taxa to understand vertebrate feeding constraints during the late Devonian water-to-land transition

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

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ABSTRACT

The vertebrate water-to-land transition and the rise of tetrapods brought about fundamental changes for the groups undergoing these evolutionary changes (i.e. stem and early tetrapods). These groups were forced to adapt to new conditions, including the distinct physical properties of water and air, requiring fundamental changes in anatomy. Nutrition (or feeding) was one of the prime physiological processes these vertebrates had to successfully adjust to change from aquatic to terrestrial life. The basal gnathostome feeding mode involves either jaw prehension or using water flows to aid in ingestion, transportation and food orientation. Meanwhile, processing was limited primarily to simple chewing bites. However, given their comparatively massive and relatively inflexible hyobranchial system (compared to the more muscular tongue of many tetrapods), it remains fraught with speculation how stem and early tetrapods managed to feed in both media. Here, we explore ontogenetic water-to-land transitions of salamanders as functional analogues to model potential changes in the feeding behaviour of stem and early tetrapods. Our data suggest two scenarios for terrestrial feeding in stem and early tetrapods as well as the presence of complex chewing behaviours, including excursions of the jaw in more than one dimension during early developmental stages. Our results demonstrate that terrestrial feeding may have been possible before flexible tongues evolved. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Food processing and nutritional assimilation in animals’.

CITATION EXPORT

Daniel Schwarz, Egon Heiss, Todd W. Pierson et al.. Using salamanders as model taxa to understand vertebrate feeding constraints during the late Devonian water-to-land transition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0541

AUTHORS

5 · 5 CENTRES

Daniel Schwarz, Egon Heiss, Todd W. Pierson, Nicolai Konow, Rainer R. Schoch

1 Department of Palaeontology, State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, Rosenstein 1, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
2 Institute of Zoology and Evolutionary Research, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Erbertstrasse 1, 07743 Jena, Germany
3 Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA 30144, USA
4 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 198 Riverside Street, Lowell, MA 01854, USA
5 Institute for Biology, Department of Palaeontology, University of Hohenheim, Wollgrasweg 23, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany