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Abstract Natural history collections are repositories of biodiversity specimens that provide critical infrastructure for studies of mammals. Over the past 3 decades, digitization of collections has opened up the temporal and spatial properties of specimens, stimulating new data sharing, use, and training across the biodiversity sciences. These digital records are the cornerstones of an “extended specimen network,” in which the diverse data derived from specimens become digital, linked, and openly accessible for science and policy. However, still missing from most digital occurrences of mammals are their morphological, reproductive, and life-history traits. Unlocking this information will advance mammalogy, establish richer faunal baselines in an era of rapid environmental change, and contextualize other types of specimen-derived information toward new knowledge and discovery. Here, we present the Ranges Digitization Network (Ranges), a community effort to digitize specimen-level traits from all terrestrial mammals of western North America, append them to digital records, publish them openly in community repositories, and make them interoperable with complimentary data streams. Ranges is a consortium of 23 institutions with an initial focus on non-marine mammal species (both native and introduced) occurring in western Canada, the western United States, and Mexico. The project will establish trait data standards and informatics workflows that can be extended to other regions, taxa, and traits. Reconnecting mammalogists, museum professionals, and researchers for a new era of collections digitization will catalyze advances in mammalogy and create a community-curated trait resource for training and engagement with global conservation initiatives. 

Abstract The impact of preserved museum specimens is transforming and increasing by three-dimensional (3D) imaging that creates high-fidelity online digital specimens. Through examples from the openVertebrate (oVert) Thematic Collections Network, we describe how we created a digitization community dedicated to the shared vision of making 3D data of specimens available and the impact of these data on a broad audience of scientists, students, teachers, artists, and more. High-fidelity digital 3D models allow people from multiple communities to simultaneously access and use scientific specimens. Based on our multiyear, multi-institution project, we identify significant technological and social hurdles that remain for fully realizing the potential impact of digital 3D specimens. 

Paleoradiology uses CT scanning, digital radiography, and 3D imaging to non-invasively characterize the lives and the experience of health and disease for past people. This paper presents an analysis of micro-CT scans of leprosy in three archaeological maxillae from Dahwa, Oman (2500-2000 BCE) to characterize the natural history of disease progression on an ultra-structural level and address environmental and social factors that shaped the experience of health in Arabia during the Bronze Age. The human skeletal remains from Bronze Age Oman present a challenge for paleopathological analysis because they are fragmentary and commingled. We demonstrate microstructural characteristics of lesions in the ventral maxilla and palate that are strongly consistent with a diagnosis of lepromatous leprosy (e.g., atrophy of the anterior nasal spine, resorption of the medial alveolar process, deterioration of the piriform aperture margin, and atrophy of the nasal septum) and the utility of micro-CT for non-invasively characterizing pathology in isolated maxilla from fragmentary, commingled archaeological contexts. The presence of disfigurement, probably resulting from leprosy, in this community provides new evidence about the early migrations of pathogens responsible for leprosy, which despite being an ancient disease is still relatively poorly understood. 

Dehnel’s phenomenon describes a seasonal and reversible winter decrease in body size, which is a trait that predicts total energy demand. However, the phenomenon remains less well- studied than common energy-saving or energy-seeking strategies of mammals. Here, we explore the generality of Dehnel’s phenomenon in Sorex shrews on three continents. First, we use new field sampling to document seasonal phenotypic change in masked shrews (Sorex cinereus) in North America at the lowest latitude yet investigated for this species (35.7°). This includes the first documentation of appendicular skeleton remodification in Sorex. Summer-to- winter decreases in S. cinereus body mass, braincase height, and femur length were 13%, 11.5%, and 8.7%, respectively, with subsequent increases of each in second-year individuals. Second, we compile a comprehensive dataset of Dehnel’s-relevant studies to test whether seasonal plasticity in Sorex globally is related to climate, demonstrating that body and braincase plasticity are functions of cold season temperatures. Meta-analytical models for both these traits generalized by a) applying at both inter- and intraspecific scales, and b) predicting the seasonal change newly observed for S. cinereus. Our results support body size plasticity as an environmentally-responsive innovation in these very small, homeothermic mammals. 

A new latest Paleocene mammal fauna from the Great Divide Basin in southern Wyoming is described and compared with fossil assemblages of similar age elsewhere in Wyoming. The Twelvemile Gulch local fauna is currently documented by 182 mammalian (127 identifiable) specimens from two localities representing 10 orders, 18 families, and 22 species of mammals, including Phenacolemur cavatus, new species. Several characteristic taxa indicate a Clarkforkian age, but some taxa that co-occur at Twelvemile Gulch show disjunct stratigraphic ranges in the well-documented stratigraphic sequence exposed in the Clarks Fork Basin of northern Wyoming. Anachronistic occurrences of Clarkforkian taxa in northern and southern Wyoming have now been documented repeatedly. These unexpected faunal associations likely reflect changing climates and associated taxon-specific range shifts across a latitudinal gradient in the Rocky Mountain Interior. The apparently asynchronous first and last appearances of certain taxa across this latitudinal gradient highlight the utility of immigrant clades over endemic taxa in biostratigraphy. A previous biozonation scheme for the Clarkforkian of the Clarks Fork Basin emphasized endemic Plesiadapis cookei and Copecion as index taxa for Clarkforkian biozones Cf-2 and Cf-3, respectively. However, the applicability of this zonation to Clarkforkian faunas from other parts of Wyoming has been problematic because Plesiadapis cookei occurs in all of them, despite substantial evidence for age disparity among these faunas. A revised biozonation for the Clarkforkian leverages first appearances of invasive Coryphodontidae and Miacidae to discriminate later Clarkforkian faunas including Twelvemile Gulch from earlier Clarkforkian faunas such as Big Multi Quarry.