Suidae are a family of mammals capable to adapt fast to environmental fluctuations, evolving through changes in size and morphology. From a palaeoentological perspective these changes are of remarkable value in providing biochronological constraints and new insights on palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. Fossil Suidae are widely employed for these purposes, especially in the African Neogene-Quaternary, where they assume a pivotal importance in our comprehension of the tempo and mode of human evolution. However, in Europe the potential of this group has been underestimated due to a historical bias. Precisely, European fossil suids have been recovered from the beginning of the 1800s, but since careful excavation protocols were established only later, several times remains of different species have been mixed together. The so-created "chimeras" generated confusion in the classification of the group and led to the establishment of a vicious circle that has negatively affected the use of suids for biochronology and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, as well as the comprehension of their evolution in the first place. To overcome these limitations a thorough re-evaluation of the European material is needed.
In this project, which will be co-funded by two grants of the European Commission under the SYNTHESYS+ project (ES-TAF-2677; DE-TAF-59), I will study specimens housed in several European institutions in order to undertake:
1) a systematic revision of the genera Propotamochoerus and Hippopotamodon (= Microstonyx);
2) an evaluation of the variability of Sus scrofa.
These are two important steps towards the goal of a suids European Neogene-Quaternary biochronological scale (i.e. a relative dating tool for the last twenty million years).
In the selected European institutions are housed several fossils hitherto not described, whose study will be already significant in itself. Moreover, other specimens have been studied long ago and deserve to be re-evaluated with modern methodologies of inquiry (for instance multivariate statistics) and state-of-the-art comparisons. I will also implement allometric relations, an innovative but feasible approach, which uses in a different way measurements that are routinely taken and already widespread in the literature.
By coupling data acquired during the visiting period with those I have already collected in other Italian and European institutions, in the short term it will be possible to carry out the systematic revision of two important Miocene Suidae genera that have been highly interested by the above mentioned historical bias: Hippopotamodon and Propotamochoerus. A propaedeutic first step in this direction is included in a work that I'm leading, titled: "Suidae transition at the Miocene-Pliocene boundary: a reassessment of the taxonomy and chronology of Propotamochoerus provincialis", which is currently under review on the Journal of Mammalian Evolution.
Morevoer, the variability of S. scrofa through time will be evaluated, constituting a meter of comparison for interpreting the diversity of the Suidae family in the fossil record.
In the long term, thanks to the experience and data acquired during this project, I will be able to tackle the broader goal of a suids European Neogene-Quaternary biochronological scale.