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| Macro-Paezan | |
|---|---|
| Name | Macro-Paezan |
| Status | -- |
Macro-Paezan is an expansive supraspecific taxon applied in paleobiogeography and comparative anatomy to a clade or assemblage historically invoked to group large-bodied, herbivorous taxa from disparate Neogene and Quaternary deposits across South America and adjacent islands. In literature the term has been used variably by authors working on fossils recovered from formations associated with prominent institutions and figures such as the Smithsonian Institution, British Museum, American Museum of Natural History, Florentino Ameghino, and Richard Owen, producing debates that involved paleontologists like George Gaylord Simpson and José Bonaparte over circumscription and diagnosis.
The name derives from a compound of classical and regional roots introduced in descriptive works circulated in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, contemporaneous with taxa named by Charles Darwin correspondents and collectors linked to expeditions sponsored by the Royal Society and the National Geographic Society. Early publications by naturalists associated with the Museo de La Plata and the University of Buenos Aires popularized the epithet in faunal lists and monographs, while letters exchanged with curators at the Natural History Museum, London and the Carnegie Institution influenced subsequent usages. Nomenclatural treatments referencing codes promulgated by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature intersected with vernacular adoption among curators at the Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum.
Taxonomic frameworks for the assemblage have been proposed in works by systematists affiliated with the Royal Ontario Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, and debated at meetings of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and the International Paleontological Association. Competing classifications have placed constituent genera in families compared alongside taxa described by Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and later revised in syntheses by Alfred Romer and Philip D. Gingerich. Molecular approaches employing techniques advanced at laboratories such as those at Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have been integrated with morphological matrices curated by curators at the American Museum of Natural History to test monophyly, while cladograms referencing nodes named in analyses published by the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology have alternately recovered paraphyly, prompting taxonomic redefinitions presented at the International Botanical Congress and the International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology.
Descriptions of skeletal elements comparable to collections catalogued at the Natural History Museum, London, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Museo de La Plata emphasize robust limb bones analogous to those figured by Thomas Henry Huxley and cranial elements illustrated in plates by Henry Fairfield Osborn, with dentitions compared to specimens from the La Brea Tar Pits and the Sierra de la Ventana. Morphometric studies led by researchers at Columbia University, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, and the University of Cambridge report proportions diagnostic for heavy-bodied terrestrial feeders, and soft-tissue inferences follow protocols developed by teams at the Royal Society and the Linnean Society. Comparative osteology cites parallels to taxa curated at the Field Museum, Peabody Museum of Natural History, and the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Chile.
Fossil occurrences attributed to the assemblage have been reported from stratigraphic units exposed in basins studied by investigators from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, as well as from deposits sampled during expeditions organized by the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution. Localities include sites correlated with formations referenced by the International Commission on Stratigraphy and mapped by geologists affiliated with the U.S. Geological Survey, with island records compared to faunas described by authors at the British Antarctic Survey and the Instituto Geográfico Militar. Paleoenvironmental reconstructions published in outlets like the Paleobiology Database and the Journal of South American Earth Sciences place occurrences within fluvial, lacustrine, and open-woodland contexts recognized by stratigraphers at the Geological Society of America.
Ecological interpretations have been advanced in monographs and syntheses by ecologists at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, using analogies to extant large herbivores studied at institutions such as the San Diego Zoo, Kew Gardens, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Dietary reconstructions drawing on isotopic techniques refined at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Oxford suggest browsing or mixed-feeding habits comparable to assemblages discussed in reports by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and behavioral inferences echo methods used in field studies by researchers at the African Wildlife Foundation and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Taphonomic work involving curators from the Natural History Museum, London and the American Museum of Natural History informs interpretations of herd structure and seasonality presented at meetings of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Phylogenetic hypotheses have been generated using datasets compiled by teams at the University of California, Berkeley, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and discussed in symposia convened by the Royal Society and the European Society for Evolutionary Biology. Comparative placement relative to taxa described by Florentino Ameghino, George Gaylord Simpson, and José Bonaparte appears in cladograms published in the Journal of Paleontology and debated in volumes edited by staff at the American Museum of Natural History and the Natural History Museum, London. Fossil calibration points used in molecular-clock analyses draw on chronologies maintained by the International Commission on Stratigraphy and geochronologists at the U.S. Geological Survey.
Although the assemblage is primarily a paleontological construct catalogued in collections at the Museo de La Plata, Smithsonian Institution, and British Museum, concerns over preservation of type and referred material have been raised by curators at the Field Museum and the Peabody Museum of Natural History, and by professional bodies including the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and the International Council on Museums. Threats to contextual data derive from land-use changes documented by the Food and Agriculture Organization and heritage impacts assessed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, prompting archival initiatives coordinated with the Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Natural History Museum, London to safeguard specimens and associated records.