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SILVIA PINEDA-MUNOZ ET AL.


constraints, phylogenetic constraints, correla- tions with home range area, or the effects of predator–prey relationships (Gingerich 1989; Siemann and Brown 1999; Smith and Lyons 2011). Since we can observe really strong patterns across continents in the evolution of body-size distribution, it is important to test whether these trends might relate to different climates. Andrews et al. (1979) analyzed both diet and


body mass together with locomotion and tax- onomy to explore differences between ecosys- tems. He observed that mammals living in environments with similar climates displayed similar ecological diversity and thus similar ecomorphospace occupation. However, a direct relationship between diet and body mass was not explicitly quantified. Later, Fernández- Hernández et al. (2006) evaluated the power of Andrews’s variables for inferring environments and concluded that only body mass was significantly correlated with climate. However, the dietary classification used in these two studies was generalized and not statistically grounded. Pineda-Munoz and Alroy (2014) proposed a


statistically based classification scheme that emphasized major feeding resources. The categories were herbivory, carnivory, frugiv- ory, granivory, insectivory, fungivory, gumiv- ory, and generalized. The authors argued for abandoning the broadly used three-way herbivore–omnivore–carnivore categorization because it grouped together species with markedly different dietary specializations. Previous research has evaluated mammalian body size in relation to other ecological vari- ables such as physiology, ecology, or life history (Andrews et al. 1979; Eisenberg 1981; Demment and Van Soest 1985; Legendre 1986). However, their dietary classification might have hindered some evolutionary and ecologi- cal patterns. In the present work, we will use the data set from Pineda-Munoz and Alroy (2014) to show how this more detailed classification scheme discriminates between ecomorphological specializations. In particu- lar, we will link the near absence of medium- sizedmammals (1–30 kg) in open landscapes to the lack of fruit trees needed to support a pure frugivore diet all year round.


Methods We used a database compiled by Pineda-


Munoz and Alroy (2014) that summarizes the dietary preferences of 139 species of terrestrial mammals. We augmented this information with published body-mass values (Smith et al. 2003) (see Supplementary Table 1). Each species was classified as a dietary specialist if a single food resource made up 50% or more of the diet (Pineda-Munoz and Alroy 2014). Dietary data were compiled from primary sources presenting volumetric percentages of stomach contents. Despite the fact that stomach content analyses are not numerous, they provide direct feeding information with minimum degradation from digestive pro- cesses and more potential for identifying ingested foods. Thus, we restricted the main analysis to the species in that study. Dietary classifications included herbivory, carnivory, frugivory, granivory, insectivory, fungivory, gumivory, and generalization. Other research- ers have classified diet based on trophic relationships (herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores plus a few variations; Schoener 1989; Reed 1998). Although this can be a good background for some ecological studies, Pineda-Munoz and Alroy (2014) showed how species described as omnivores could display very distinctive dietary specializations (e.g., carnivore–herbivore and insectivore– granivore). To test whether the same ecomorphological


patterns could be observed on a wider scale, we also analyzed the mammal data of Wilman et al. (2014), a database that includes quantita- tive percent estimates of lifelong diet for 5400 mammal species. To make comparisons possi- ble, we restricted the analysis to terrestrial nonvolant species. Wilman and colleagues’ dietary classification divided the items found


in a given diet into 9 categories: birds, reptiles, fish, unknown vertebrates, scavenge-carrion, fruit, nectar, seeds, and plants. All vertebrate feeding resources (mammals, birds, fish, rep- tiles, and scavenge-carrion) were put in the same feeding category. Unfortunately, we were unable to discriminate fungus and root-feeding categories, because these were included in the vegetation category by Wilman


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