Abstract

Updating the fungal infection-mammalian selection hypothesis at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

Highlights

  • In 2005, one of us proposed that a fungal bloom at the end of the Cretaceous Period would have favored the selection of the endothermic mammals over ectothermic reptiles, which eventually led to the great mammalian radiation and the replacement of the Cretaceous reptilian megafauna with the mammalian megafauna of the Tertiary or Paleogene Period [1]

  • This idea, which we name the “fungal infection-mammalian selection” (FIMS) hypothesis, suggested a new explanation for how the mammals came to replace reptiles as the dominant large animals after the Cretaceous Period [2], which ended 66 million years ago with a planetary cataclysm known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event

  • The FIMS hypothesis posits that the remarkable resistance of mammals to fungal diseases today is a consequence of fungal selection for this lifestyle at the end of the Cretaceous [2]

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Summary

OPEN ACCESS

In 2005, one of us proposed that a fungal bloom at the end of the Cretaceous Period would have favored the selection of the endothermic mammals over ectothermic reptiles, which eventually led to the great mammalian radiation and the replacement of the Cretaceous reptilian megafauna with the mammalian megafauna of the Tertiary or Paleogene Period [1] This idea, which we name the “fungal infection-mammalian selection” (FIMS) hypothesis, suggested a new explanation for how the mammals came to replace reptiles as the dominant large animals after the Cretaceous Period [2], which ended 66 million years ago with a planetary cataclysm known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.

The FIMS hypothesis
The postcalamity environment
Global cooling favors mammals over reptiles
The specter of fungal diseases
Updating FIMS
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