Bone microanatomy and lifestyle in tetrapods
Résumé
Locomotor adaptations and associated lifestyles affect the inner architecture of tetrapod bones, i.e., bone microanatomy, through various mechanical constraints and loading patterns. Hence, distantly related taxa adapted to a similar lifestyle often exhibit convergent microanatomies. This relationship is increasingly used by paleontologists to infer the lifestyle habits of extinct tetrapods and understand major evolutionary transitions, such as the move onto land by vertebrates and the timing of returns to an aquatic lifestyle. This chapter is intended to (1) summarize the most relevant data on the relationship between bone microanatomy and lifestyle adaptations in extant and extinct tetrapodomorphs; (2) present the evolution of methodological approaches used to collect microanatomical data, study adaptation and draw paleoecological inferences and (3) discuss the limitation of such methods and provide a critical assessment of the results.