Abstract

The Asian continent is unique for its exceptional biodiversity and position as a biogeographic crossroads, resulting in considerable taxonomic, ecological, and morphological diversity. Asia is also notable for its complex geological and climatic history stemming from the collision of Eurasia with the Indian subcontinent, resulting in uplift of the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, which have gone on to influence local and global climatic change over millions of years. The effects of these events on biotic assemblages have not been comprehensively investigated, and consequences for mammalian assemblages are unclear. Asian biodiversity is preserved in a rich and well-studied Cenozoic fossil mammal record which offers the opportunity to examine the patterns of Asian rodent biodiversity in response to significant geological and climatic events. In this study, we investigate morphological and ecological diversity in response to Tibetan Plateau uplift and subsequent changes to monsoon circulation during the early Miocene, the aridification of central Asia during the late Miocene, and the intensification of dust transport during the Pliocene-Pleistocene. We first present a large dataset of rodent taxonomic, morphological, and ecological diversity. We then examine site dissimilarity and multivariate ecomorphospace change before and after key geologic and climatic events. We find distinct ecomorphospace occupation in most time stages with contraction across periods of aridification and expansion during periods of increased dust transportation. We conclude that ecomorphological diversity responds to environmental drivers and is detectable in the fossil record of Asian rodents, suggesting that large-scale landscape and climatic shifts have had important influences on mammalian evolution.

Document Type

Article

Source Publication

Palaeontologia Electronica

Version

Published Version

Publication Date

4-2026

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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© The Author(s)

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