1
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Foffa D, Young MT, Brusatte SL. Comparative functional morphology indicates niche partitioning among sympatric marine reptiles. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2024; 11:231951. [PMID: 39076819 PMCID: PMC11285779 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.231951] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2023] [Revised: 03/15/2024] [Accepted: 03/19/2024] [Indexed: 07/31/2024]
Abstract
Mesozoic marine ecosystems were dominated by diverse lineages of aquatic tetrapods. For over 50 Ma in the Jurassic until the Early Cretaceous, plesiosaurians, ichthyosaurians and thalattosuchian crocodylomorphs coexisted at the top levels of trophic food webs. We created a functional dataset of continuous craniomandibular and dental characters known from neontological studies to be functionally significant in modern aquatic tetrapods. We analysed this dataset with multivariate ordination and inferential statistics to assess functional similarities and differences in the marine reptile faunas of two well-sampled Jurassic ecosystems deposited in the same seaway: the Oxford Clay Formation (OCF, Callovian-early Oxfordian, Middle-Late Jurassic) and the Kimmeridge Clay Formation (KCF, Kimmeridgian-Tithonian, Late Jurassic) of the UK. Lower jaw-based macroevolutionary trends are similar to those of tooth-based diversity studies. Closely related species cluster together, with minimal overlaps in the morphospace. Marine reptile lineages were characterized by the distinctive combinations of features, but we reveal multiple instances of morphofunctional convergence among different groups. We quantitatively corroborate previous observations that the ecosystems in the OCF and KCF were markedly distinct in faunal composition and structure. Morphofunctional differentiation may have enabled specialization and was an important factor facilitating the coexistence of diverse marine reptile assemblages in deep time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Davide Foffa
- Department of Geosciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
- School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
- Department of Natural Sciences, National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, UK
| | - Mark T. Young
- School of GeoSciences, Grant Institute, University of Edinburgh, EdinburghEH9 3FE, UK
| | - Stephen L. Brusatte
- Department of Natural Sciences, National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, UK
- School of GeoSciences, Grant Institute, University of Edinburgh, EdinburghEH9 3FE, UK
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2
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Laboury A, Scheyer TM, Klein N, Stubbs TL, Fischer V. High phenotypic plasticity at the dawn of the eosauropterygian radiation. PeerJ 2023; 11:e15776. [PMID: 37671356 PMCID: PMC10476616 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.15776] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2023] [Accepted: 06/29/2023] [Indexed: 09/07/2023] Open
Abstract
The initial radiation of Eosauropterygia during the Triassic biotic recovery represents a key event in the dominance of reptiles secondarily adapted to marine environments. Recent studies on Mesozoic marine reptile disparity highlighted that eosauropterygians had their greatest morphological diversity during the Middle Triassic, with the co-occurrence of Pachypleurosauroidea, Nothosauroidea and Pistosauroidea, mostly along the margins of the Tethys Ocean. However, these previous studies quantitatively analysed the disparity of Eosauropterygia as a whole without focussing on Triassic taxa, thus limiting our understanding of their diversification and morphospace occupation during the Middle Triassic. Our multivariate morphometric analyses highlight a clearly distinct colonization of the ecomorphospace by the three clades, with no evidence of whole-body convergent evolution with the exception of the peculiar pistosauroid Wangosaurus brevirostris, which appears phenotypically much more similar to nothosauroids. This global pattern is mostly driven by craniodental differences and inferred feeding specializations. We also reveal noticeable regional differences among nothosauroids and pachypleurosauroids of which the latter likely experienced a remarkable diversification in the eastern Tethys during the Pelsonian. Our results demonstrate that the high phenotypic plasticity characterizing the evolution of the pelagic plesiosaurians was already present in their Triassic ancestors, casting eosauropterygians as particularly adaptable animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antoine Laboury
- Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium
| | | | - Nicole Klein
- Institute of Geosciences, Paleontology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - Thomas L. Stubbs
- School of Life, Health & Chemical Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
| | - Valentin Fischer
- Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium
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3
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Jamison-Todd S, Moon BC, Rowe AJ, Williams M, Benton MJ. Dietary niche partitioning in Early Jurassic ichthyosaurs from Strawberry Bank. J Anat 2022; 241:1409-1423. [PMID: 36175086 DOI: 10.1111/joa.13744] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2021] [Revised: 08/02/2022] [Accepted: 08/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Jurassic ichthyosaurs dominated upper trophic levels of marine ecosystems. Many species coexisted alongside each another, and it is uncertain whether they competed for the same array of food or divided dietary resources, each specializing in different kinds of prey. Here, we test whether feeding differences existed between species, applying finite element analysis to ichthyosaurs for the first time. We examine two juvenile ichthyosaur specimens, referred to Hauffiopteryx typicus and Stenopterygius triscissus, from the Strawberry Bank Lagerstätte, a shallow marine environment from the Early Jurassic of southern England (Toarcian, ~183 Ma). Snout and cranial robusticity differ between the species, with S. triscissus having a more robust snout and cranium and specializing in slow biting of hard prey, and H. typicus with its slender snout specializing in fast, but weaker bites on fast-moving, but soft prey. The two species did not differ in muscle forces, but stress distributions varied in the nasal area, reflecting differences when biting at different points along the tooth row: the more robustly snouted Stenopterygius resisted increases or shifts in stress distribution when the bite point was shifted from the posterior to the mid-point of the tooth row, but the slender-snouted Hauffiopteryx showed shifts and increases in stress distributions between these two bite points. The differences in cranial morphology, dentition and inferred stresses between the two species suggest adaptations for dietary niche partitioning.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Benjamin C Moon
- Bristol Palaeobiology Group, School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
| | - Andre J Rowe
- Bristol Palaeobiology Group, School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
| | - Matt Williams
- Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Bath, UK
| | - Michael J Benton
- Bristol Palaeobiology Group, School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
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4
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Laboury A, Bennion RF, Thuy B, Weis R, Fischer V. Anatomy and phylogenetic relationships of Temnodontosaurus zetlandicus (Reptilia: Ichthyosauria). Zool J Linn Soc 2022. [DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Parvipelvia is a major clade of ichthyosaurians that diversified during the Triassic-Jurassic transition. The interrelationships of early parvipelvians remain unclear and many genera are loosely diagnosed, such as Temnodontosaurus, an ecologically important genus from the Early Jurassic of Western Europe. One taxon concentrates many taxonomic issues: ‘Ichthyosaurus’ acutirostris was previously assigned to Temnodontosaurus and for which ‘Ichthyosaurus’ zetlandicus represents a junior synonym. We redescribe the holotype of ‘Ichthyosaurus’ zetlandicus (CAMSM J35176) and a new specimen probably attributable to this taxon (MNHNL TU885) from the Toarcian of Luxembourg. We find that Temnodontosaurus zetlandicus comb. nov. is a valid species that should be referred to the genus Temnodontosaurus, sharing a number of traits with Temnodontosaurus nuertingensis and Temnodontosaurus trigonodon, despite having a distinct cranial architecture. Our phylogenetic analyses under both implied weighting maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference recover T. zetlandicus as closely related to several species currently assigned to Temnodontosaurus. Species included in Temnodontosaurus form a polyphyletic yet well-clustered group among basal neoichthyosaurians, demonstrating that the monophyly of this genus needs to be thoroughly investigated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antoine Laboury
- Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab, University of Liège, 14 Allée du 6 Août, Liège 4000, Belgium
| | - Rebecca F Bennion
- Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab, University of Liège, 14 Allée du 6 Août, Liège 4000, Belgium
- Palaeontology Department, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, 29, Rue Vautier, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
| | - Ben Thuy
- Palaeontology Departement, Natural History Museum Luxembourg, 25 Rue Münster, L-2160 Luxembourg, Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg
| | - Robert Weis
- Palaeontology Departement, Natural History Museum Luxembourg, 25 Rue Münster, L-2160 Luxembourg, Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg
| | - Valentin Fischer
- Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab, University of Liège, 14 Allée du 6 Août, Liège 4000, Belgium
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5
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Fischer V, Weis R, Thuy B. Refining the marine reptile turnover at the Early-Middle Jurassic transition. PeerJ 2021; 9:e10647. [PMID: 33665003 PMCID: PMC7906043 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.10647] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2020] [Accepted: 12/04/2020] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Even though a handful of long-lived reptilian clades dominated Mesozoic marine ecosystems, several biotic turnovers drastically changed the taxonomic composition of these communities. A seemingly slow paced, within-geological period turnover took place across the Early–Middle Jurassic transition. This turnover saw the demise of early neoichthyosaurians, rhomaleosaurid plesiosaurians and early plesiosauroids in favour of ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaurians and cryptoclidid and pliosaurid plesiosaurians, clades that will dominate the Late Jurassic and, for two of them, the entire Early Cretaceous as well. The fossil record of this turnover is however extremely poor and this change of dominance appears to be spread across the entire middle Toarcian–Bathonian interval. We describe a series of ichthyosaurian and plesiosaurian specimens from successive geological formations in Luxembourg and Belgium that detail the evolution of marine reptile assemblages across the Early–Middle Jurassic transition within a single area, the Belgo–Luxembourgian sub-basin. These fossils reveal the continuing dominance of large rhomaleosaurid plesiosaurians, microcleidid plesiosaurians and Temnodontosaurus-like ichthyosaurians up to the latest Toarcian, indicating that the structuration of the upper tier of Western Europe marine ecosystems remained essentially constant up to the very end of the Early Jurassic. These fossils also suddenly record ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaurians and cryptoclidid plesiosaurians by the early Bajocian. These results from a geographically-restricted area provide a clearer picture of the shape of the marine reptile turnover occurring at the early–Middle Jurassic transition. This event appears restricted to the sole Aalenian stage, reducing the uncertainty of its duration, at least for ichthyosaurians and plesiosaurians, to 4 instead of 14 million years.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentin Fischer
- Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab, UR Geology, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium
| | - Robert Weis
- Department of palaeontology, Natural History Museum Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg
| | - Ben Thuy
- Department of palaeontology, Natural History Museum Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg
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6
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Moon BC, Stubbs TL. Early high rates and disparity in the evolution of ichthyosaurs. Commun Biol 2020; 3:68. [PMID: 32054967 PMCID: PMC7018711 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-0779-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2019] [Accepted: 01/07/2020] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
How clades diversify early in their history is integral to understanding the origins of biodiversity and ecosystem recovery following mass extinctions. Moreover, diversification can represent evolutionary opportunities and pressures following ecosystem changes. Ichthyosaurs, Mesozoic marine reptiles, appeared after the end-Permian mass extinction and provide opportunities to assess clade diversification in a changed world. Using recent cladistic data, skull length data, and the most complete phylogenetic trees to date for the group, we present a combined disparity, morphospace, and evolutionary rates analysis that reveals the tempo and mode of ichthyosaur morphological evolution through 160 million years. Ichthyosaur evolution shows an archetypal early burst trend, driven by ecological opportunity in Triassic seas, and an evolutionary bottleneck leading to a long-term reduction in evolutionary rates and disparity. This is represented consistently across all analytical methods by a Triassic peak in ichthyosaur disparity and evolutionary rates, and morphospace separation between Triassic and post-Triassic taxa.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin C Moon
- Palaeobiology Research Group, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1TQ, UK.
| | - Thomas L Stubbs
- Palaeobiology Research Group, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1TQ, UK
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7
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Pardo-Pérez JM, Kear B, Maxwell EE. Palaeoepidemiology in extinct vertebrate populations: factors influencing skeletal health in Jurassic marine reptiles. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2019; 6:190264. [PMID: 31417732 PMCID: PMC6689571 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.190264] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2019] [Accepted: 07/04/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Palaeoepidemiological studies related to palaeoecology are rare, but have the potential to provide information regarding ecosystem-level characteristics by measuring individual health. In order to assess factors underlying the prevalence of pathologies in large marine vertebrates, we surveyed ichthyosaurs (Mesozoic marine reptiles) from the Posidonienschiefer Formation (Early Jurassic: Toarcian) of southwestern Germany. This Formation provides a relatively large sample from a geologically and geographically restricted interval, making it ideal for generating baseline data for a palaeoepidemiological survey. We examined the influence of taxon, anatomical region, body size, ontogeny and environmental change, as represented by the early Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event, on the prevalence of pathologies, based on a priori ideas of factors influencing population skeletal health. Our results show that the incidence of pathologies is dependent on taxon, with the small-bodied genus Stenopterygius exhibiting fewer skeletal pathologies than other genera. Within Stenopterygius, we detected more pathologies in large adults than in smaller size classes. Stratigraphic horizon, a proxy for palaeoenvironmental change, did not influence the incidence of pathologies in Stenopterygius. The quantification of the occurrence of pathologies within taxa and across guilds is critical to constructing more detailed hypotheses regarding changes in the prevalence of skeletal injury and disease through Earth history.
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Affiliation(s)
- Judith M. Pardo-Pérez
- Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart, Germany
- Dirección de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad de Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile
| | - Benjamin Kear
- Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
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8
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Gutarra S, Moon BC, Rahman IA, Palmer C, Lautenschlager S, Brimacombe AJ, Benton MJ. Effects of body plan evolution on the hydrodynamic drag and energy requirements of swimming in ichthyosaurs. Proc Biol Sci 2019; 286:20182786. [PMID: 30836867 PMCID: PMC6458325 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.2786] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2018] [Accepted: 02/11/2019] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Ichthyosaurs are an extinct group of fully marine tetrapods that were well adapted to aquatic locomotion. During their approximately 160 Myr existence, they evolved from elongate and serpentine forms into stockier, fish-like animals, convergent with sharks and dolphins. Here, we use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to quantify the impact of this transition on the energy demands of ichthyosaur swimming for the first time. We run computational simulations of water flow using three-dimensional digital models of nine ichthyosaurs and an extant functional analogue, a bottlenose dolphin, providing the first quantitative evaluation of ichthyosaur hydrodynamics across phylogeny. Our results show that morphology did not have a major effect on the drag coefficient or the energy cost of steady swimming through geological time. We show that even the early ichthyosaurs produced low levels of drag for a given volume, comparable to those of a modern dolphin, and that deep 'torpedo-shaped' bodies did not reduce the cost of locomotion. Our analysis also provides important insight into the choice of scaling parameters for CFD applied to swimming mechanics, and underlines the great influence of body size evolution on ichthyosaur locomotion. A combination of large bodies and efficient swimming modes lowered the cost of steady swimming as ichthyosaurs became increasingly adapted to a pelagic existence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Susana Gutarra
- School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK
| | - Benjamin C. Moon
- School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK
| | - Imran A. Rahman
- Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PW, UK
| | - Colin Palmer
- School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK
| | - Stephan Lautenschlager
- School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
| | - Alison J. Brimacombe
- School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK
| | - Michael J. Benton
- School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK
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9
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Flannery Sutherland JT, Moon BC, Stubbs TL, Benton MJ. Does exceptional preservation distort our view of disparity in the fossil record? Proc Biol Sci 2019; 286:20190091. [PMID: 30963850 PMCID: PMC6408902 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.0091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2019] [Accepted: 02/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
How much of evolutionary history is lost because of the unevenness of the fossil record? Lagerstätten, sites which have historically yielded exceptionally preserved fossils, provide remarkable, yet distorting insights into past life. When examining macroevolutionary trends in the fossil record, they can generate an uneven sampling signal for taxonomic diversity; by comparison, their effect on morphological variety (disparity) is poorly understood. We show here that lagerstätten impact the disparity of ichthyosaurs, Mesozoic marine reptiles, by preserving higher diversity and more complete specimens. Elsewhere in the fossil record, undersampled diversity and more fragmentary specimens produce spurious results. We identify a novel effect, that a taxon moves towards the centroid of a Generalized Euclidean dataset as its proportion of missing data increases. We term this effect 'centroid slippage', as a disparity-based analogue of phylogenetic stemward slippage. Our results suggest that uneven sampling presents issues for our view of disparity in the fossil record, but that this is also dependent on the methodology used, especially true with widely used Generalized Euclidean distances. Mitigation of missing cladistic data is possible by phylogenetic gap filling, and heterogeneous effects of lagerstätten on disparity may be accounted for by understanding the factors affecting their spatio-temporal distribution.
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10
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Pardo-Pérez JM, Kear BP, Mallison H, Gómez M, Moroni M, Maxwell EE. Pathological survey on Temnodontosaurus from the Early Jurassic of southern Germany. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0204951. [PMID: 30356279 PMCID: PMC6200200 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204951] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2018] [Accepted: 09/16/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Paleopathologies document skeletal damage in extinct organisms and can be used to infer the causes of injury, as well as aspects of related biology, ecology and behavior. To date, few studies have been undertaken on Jurassic marine reptiles, while ichthyosaur pathologies in particular have never been systematically evaluated. Here we survey 41 specimens of the apex predator ichthyosaur Temnodontosaurus from the Early Jurassic of southern Germany in order to document the range and absolute frequency of pathologies observed in this taxon as a function of the number of specimens examined. According to our analysis, most observed pathologies in Temnodontosaurus are force-induced traumas with signs of healing, possibly inflicted during aggressive interactions with conspecifics. When the material is preserved, broken ribs are correlated in most of the cases with traumas elsewhere in the skeleton such as cranial injuries. The range of cranial pathologies in Temnodontosaurus is similar to those reported for extinct cetaceans and mosasaurs, which were interpreted as traces of aggressive encounters. Nevertheless, Temnodontosaurus differs from these other marine amniotes in the absence of pathologies in the vertebral column, consistent with the pattern previously documented in ichthyosaurs. We did not detect any instances of avascular necrosis in Temnodontosaurus from southern Germany, which may reflect a shallow diving life style. This study is intended to provide baseline data for the various types of observed pathologies in large ichthyosaurs occupying the 'apex predator' niche, and potentially clarifies aspects of species-specific behavior relative to other ichthyosaurs and marine amniotes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Judith M. Pardo-Pérez
- Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
- Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad de Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile
| | | | | | - Marcelo Gómez
- Escuela de Medicina Veterinaria, Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Campus Isla Teja, Valdivia, Chile
| | - Manuel Moroni
- Escuela de Medicina Veterinaria, Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Campus Isla Teja, Valdivia, Chile
| | - Erin E. Maxwell
- Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
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11
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel G. Dick
- Department of Chemical and Physical SciencesUniversity of Toronto Mississauga Mississauga Ontario Canada
- Department of Earth SciencesUniversity of Toronto Toronto Ontario Canada
| | - Marc Laflamme
- Department of Chemical and Physical SciencesUniversity of Toronto Mississauga Mississauga Ontario Canada
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12
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Pardo-Pérez JM, Kear BP, Gómez M, Moroni M, Maxwell EE. Ichthyosaurian palaeopathology: evidence of injury and disease in fossil ‘fish lizards’. J Zool (1987) 2017. [DOI: 10.1111/jzo.12517] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- J. M. Pardo-Pérez
- Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart; Stuttgart Germany
- Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado; Universidad de Magallanes; Punta Arenas Chile
| | - B. P. Kear
- Museum of Evolution; Uppsala University; Uppsala Sweden
| | - M. Gómez
- Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias; Universidad Austral de Chile; Campus Isla Teja Valdivia Chile
| | - M. Moroni
- Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias; Universidad Austral de Chile; Campus Isla Teja Valdivia Chile
| | - E. E. Maxwell
- Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart; Stuttgart Germany
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13
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Jablonski D. Approaches to Macroevolution: 2. Sorting of Variation, Some Overarching Issues, and General Conclusions. Evol Biol 2017; 44:451-475. [PMID: 29142334 PMCID: PMC5661022 DOI: 10.1007/s11692-017-9434-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2017] [Accepted: 10/04/2017] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Approaches to macroevolution require integration of its two fundamental components, within a hierarchical framework. Following a companion paper on the origin of variation, I here discuss sorting within an evolutionary hierarchy. Species sorting-sometimes termed species selection in the broad sense, meaning differential origination and extinction owing to intrinsic biological properties-can be split into strict-sense species selection, in which rate differentials are governed by emergent, species-level traits such as geographic range size, and effect macroevolution, in which rates are governed by organism-level traits such as body size; both processes can create hitchhiking effects, indirectly causing the proliferation or decline of other traits. Several methods can operationalize the concept of emergence, so that rigorous separation of these processes is increasingly feasible. A macroevolutionary tradeoff, underlain by the intrinsic traits that influence evolutionary dynamics, causes speciation and extinction rates to covary in many clades, resulting in evolutionary volatility of some clades and more subdued behavior of others; the few clades that break the tradeoff can achieve especially prolific diversification. In addition to intrinsic biological traits at multiple levels, extrinsic events can drive the waxing and waning of clades, and the interaction of traits and events are difficult but important to disentangle. Evolutionary trends can arise in many ways, and at any hierarchical level; descriptive models can be fitted to clade trajectories in phenotypic or functional spaces, but they may not be diagnostic regarding processes, and close attention must be paid to both leading and trailing edges of apparent trends. Biotic interactions can have negative or positive effects on taxonomic diversity within a clade, but cannot be readily extrapolated from the nature of such interactions at the organismic level. The relationships among macroevolutionary currencies through time (taxonomic richness, morphologic disparity, functional variety) are crucial for understanding the nature of evolutionary diversification. A novel approach to diversity-disparity analysis shows that taxonomic diversifications can lag behind, occur in concert with, or precede, increases in disparity. Some overarching issues relating to both the origin and sorting of clades and phenotypes include the macroevolutionary role of mass extinctions, the potential differences between plant and animal macroevolution, whether macroevolutionary processes have changed through geologic time, and the growing human impact on present-day macroevolution. Many challenges remain, but progress is being made on two of the key ones: (a) the integration of variation-generating mechanisms and the multilevel sorting processes that act on that variation, and (b) the integration of paleontological and neontological approaches to historical biology.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Jablonski
- Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, 5734 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 USA
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14
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Congreve CR, Falk AR, Lamsdell JC. Biological hierarchies and the nature of extinction. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2017; 93:811-826. [DOI: 10.1111/brv.12368] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2017] [Revised: 08/18/2017] [Accepted: 08/22/2017] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Curtis R. Congreve
- Department of Geosciences; 510 Deike Building, Pennsylvania State University; University Park PA 16802 U.S.A
| | - Amanda R. Falk
- Department of Biology; Centre College, 600 West Walnut Street; Danville KY 40422 U.S.A
| | - James C. Lamsdell
- Department of Geology and Geography, 98 Beechurst Avenure, Brooks Hall; West Virginia University; Morgantown WV 26506 U.S.A
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15
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Pimiento C, Griffin JN, Clements CF, Silvestro D, Varela S, Uhen MD, Jaramillo C. The Pliocene marine megafauna extinction and its impact on functional diversity. Nat Ecol Evol 2017; 1:1100-1106. [DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0223-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 82] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2016] [Accepted: 05/23/2017] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
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Extinction of fish-shaped marine reptiles associated with reduced evolutionary rates and global environmental volatility. Nat Commun 2016; 7:10825. [PMID: 26953824 PMCID: PMC4786747 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10825] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2015] [Accepted: 01/22/2016] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite their profound adaptations to the aquatic realm and their apparent success throughout the Triassic and the Jurassic, ichthyosaurs became extinct roughly 30 million years before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Current hypotheses for this early demise involve relatively minor biotic events, but are at odds with recent understanding of the ichthyosaur fossil record. Here, we show that ichthyosaurs maintained high but diminishing richness and disparity throughout the Early Cretaceous. The last ichthyosaurs are characterized by reduced rates of origination and phenotypic evolution and their elevated extinction rates correlate with increased environmental volatility. In addition, we find that ichthyosaurs suffered from a profound Early Cenomanian extinction that reduced their ecological diversity, likely contributing to their final extinction at the end of the Cenomanian. Our results support a growing body of evidence revealing that global environmental change resulted in a major, temporally staggered turnover event that profoundly reorganized marine ecosystems during the Cenomanian. The extinction of the ichthyosaurs had previously been attributed to increasing competition or to the loss of their main prey. Here, Fischer et al. analyse phylogenetic and ecological patterns of ichthyosaur diversification and extinction, and find that the decline of the group is more likely due to climatic volatility.
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