Climatic constraints on the biogeographic history of Mesozoic dinosaurs

Abstract

Highlights d Sauropod dinosaurs never invaded polar palaeolatitudes d Sauropods were constrained to lower latitudes more than the other dinosaurs d Sauropods were more abundant in the Southern rather than in the Northern Hemisphere d Sauropod ranges were more sensitive to temperature than those of other dinosaurs

Shifts in food webs and niche stability shaped survivorship and extinction at the end-Cretaceous

“…Ecological evidence (29,65), including the multidimensional niches presented here, paints a nuanced picture of the final 18 Ma of non-avian dinosaur existence. Despite substantial food web restructuring before their extinction, non-avian dinosaurs seem to have been characterized by largely stable and mostly static ecological niches during the Campanian and Maastrichtian, likely due to a large spectrum of already inhabited ecologies and morphotypes (25,29,55,60,61).…”

“…1A ), supplementary information (e.g., stratigraphic placement) from published sources and publicly available collections was integrated by several of us (A.A.C., D.G.D., P.D.M., T.E.W., G.P.W.M., and S.L.B.). Taxa with unclear genus identification were discarded [i.e., we did not incorporate “cryptic” diversity represented by taxonomically undiagnostic fossil remains, nor did we infer ghost lineages based on phylogenetic diversity ( 91 , 92 )], as were para-taxonomic taxa [e.g., trace remains and eggs ( 37 , 65 )]. If questionable ages and stratigraphic incongruencies emerged, occurrences were either revised following the most recent stratigraphic models [e.g., ( 93 , 94 )] or excluded.…”

“…Variables include near-surface (1.5 m) mean annual temperature (°C), near-surface (1.5 m) annual temperature SD (°C), annual average precipitation (mm), annual precipitation SD (mm), net primary productivity (g C m −2 year −1 ), and plant functional types (i.e., from broadleaf and needleleaf trees to C3-type and C4-type groundcover) at 2.75°× 3.25°spatial resolution. The simulations and settings of the terminal Cretaceous and early Paleogene models used here are described in full by Lunt et al (44), Valdes et al (45), and Farnsworth et al (121), and implications of these general circulation modeling (GCM) constraints are discussed by Chiarenza et al (6,29,65,122), Dunne et al (123), and Waterson et al (124). Briefly, all model simulations underwent the same spin-up procedure and were run for a total of 1422 years reaching quasi-surface equilibrium, with the same initial conditions and boundary conditions (44), with the exception of solar constant (table S5) and paleogeography.…”

“…Given the uncertainty of the data, these models accurately reproduce modern-day climates of most terrestrial biomes (45). HadCM3L has contributed to Coupled Model Intercomparison Project experiments and demonstrated skill for an array of Mesozoic paleobiogeographical studies (6,29,65,123). However, there is still a high degree of uncertainty in pCO 2 proxies during the Phanerozoic and paleoclimatic reconstructions in general (123)(124)(125), and ongoing work will continue to constrain these data and their impact on modeling niche occupancy dynamics of ancient faunas.…”

palaeoverse: a community-driven R package to support palaeobiological analysis

“…We hope that formally including these options within the bin_time function will encourage palaeontologists to routinely explore and compare the outcomes of various binning approaches with ease. In recent years, palaeobiology has developed a heightened interest in the spatial structure of the fossil record, with studies focused on understanding the spatial distribution of biodiversity and the processes that drive them (Vilhena and Smith, 2013;Antell et al, 2020;Close et al, 2020b;Chiarenza et al, 2022;Flannery-Sutherland, Silvestro and Benton, 2022;Jones et al, 2022). In order to support such analyses, bin_space has been developed for palaeoverse.…”