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1736                                       P. RAIA AND S. MEIRI

























































        FIG. 1.  Size change (SR) across competition and predation levels in analysis of long bones (A) and teeth (B) of fossil Mediterranean
        ungulates. Displayed are medians (black line), interquartile ranges (box), confidence intervals (error bars), and outliers (open circles).


                              RESULTS                        0.957; Fig. 1A). Body mass of ancestral species was not a
                                                             significant predictor of dwarfism (df   2, F   0.803, P
               The Biological Interaction Effect Hypothesis:  0.378).
                     Plio-Pleistocene Ungulate Size
                                                               The analysis on teeth supports the data on long bones for
          ANCOVA on long bone data reveals a significant increase  competition (df   2, F   3.868, P   0.038). Post-hoc Tukey
        in dwarfing with diminishing levels of competition (long  HSD indicates that dwarfing is most pronounced at compe-
        bones, df   2, F   7.924, P   0.002). A post-hoc Tukey  tition level 1 (no competitors present, mean SR   0.515)
        honest significant difference test indicates competition level  compared to both competition level 2 (SR difference   0.27,
        3 (smaller intraguild competitors present) had size reduction  P   0.001) and 3 (SR difference   0.34, P   0.001). SR
        index (SR, mean   0.934) significantly higher than both com-  difference between groups 2 and 3 is nonsignificant (SR dif-
        petition level 1 (SR difference   0.44, P   0.001) and 2 (SR  ference   0.05, P   0.739). This is because some taxa in
        difference   0.28, P   0.006). Although SR values were  category 3 are known by postcranial bones only. Again, pre-
        smallest at competition level 1 (mean SR   48.6% of the  dation does not influence SR (df   2, F   0.540, P   0.948;
        size on the mainland), the difference between levels 1 and 2  Fig. 1B). The effect of body mass of ancestral species was
        is not significant (SR difference   0.17, P   0.106). Pre-  non-significant (df   2, F   3.340, P   0.079).
        dation does not influence dwarfism (df   2, F  0.044, P    The identity of the ancestral species did not have a sig-
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