The Eomyidae in Asia: Biogeography, diversity and dispersals

In Asia, the first find of an eomyid rodent was reported almost one century after the first studies of the family Eomyidae in North America and Europe. Since then, eomyid rodents have been increasingly found in Asia particularly over the past two decades. Here, we review the Asian record of this family at the genus level. Currently, 22 species within 14 genera were reported from Asia, including seven endemic genera and rare materials of apeomyine eomyids. Eomyids emphasize the palaeogeographic importance of Asia in considering intercontinental dispersal events of small mammals. With newly compiled data for Asian eomyids, we also compare genus-level diversity trends through time among North America, Europe, and Asia. Despite data standardizations limited with respect to potential biases in the fossil record, we found that the Asian eomyid diversity closely follows ecological shifts induced by climate changes. In general, Asian eomyid genera disappeared earlier than their European counterparts. We suggest that this pattern is not dictated by differences in the quality of the fossil record and is related to the expansion of drier habitats over large areas of Asia.Y.K. received financialsupport from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science,Tokyo, Japan (JSPS, KAKENHI Grant Number JP18K13650,Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists) and also from theNational Museum of Nature and Science as part of a researchproject called “Chemical Stratigraphy and Dating as a Clue for Understanding the History of the Earth and Life”. I.C.-V.was financially supported by the Spanish Ministerio deEconomía, Industria y Competitividad, the Agencia Estatal deInvestigación and the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union (projects CGL2016-76431-P, AEI/FEDER EU, CGL2017-82654-P MINECO/FEDER EU; andresearch contract RYC-2013-12470), and the Generalitat deCatalunya (CERCA Programme). I.C.-V. is a member of theconsolidated research group 2017 SGR 116 of the Generalitatde Catalunya. O.M.’s research is supported by a grant of theSwiss National Science Foundation (N° 200021-162359).D.C.K acknowledges the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft(DFG, Bonn, Germany) for various grants to study mammalianenamel microstructure. T.M. was financially supported by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA, Stockholm,Sweden) and by JSPS, Tokyo, Japan.