Cretaceous sauropod diversity and taxonomic succession in South America

Faria, Caio César; Riga, Bernardo J. González; Candeiro, Carlos Roberto dos Anjos; Marinho, Thiago da Silva; David, Leonardo Daniel Ortiz; Simbras, Felipe Medeiros; Castanho, Roberto Barboza; Muniz, Fellipe Pereira; Pereira, Paulo Victor Luiz Gomes da Costa

doi:10.1016/j.jsames.2014.11.008

Cited by 30 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…In summary, our increased taxon sampling demonstrates the wider distribution of the blind fossa in sauropod caudal vertebrae, and argues for somphospondylan, rather than brachiosaurid, affinities for Padillasaurus . This placement is more in keeping with our current knowledge of Cretaceous South American titanosauriforms, all of which appear to be somphospondylans ( Mannion et al, 2013 ; Jesus Faria et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

The earliest known titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur and the evolution of Brachiosauridae

Mannion

Allain

Moine

2017

PeerJ

112

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Brachiosauridae is a clade of titanosauriform sauropod dinosaurs that includes the well-known Late Jurassic taxa Brachiosaurus and Giraffatitan. However, there is disagreement over the brachiosaurid affinities of most other taxa, and little consensus regarding the clade’s composition or inter-relationships. An unnamed partial sauropod skeleton was collected from middle–late Oxfordian (early Late Jurassic) deposits in Damparis, in the Jura department of eastern France, in 1934. Since its brief description in 1943, this specimen has been informally known in the literature as the ‘Damparis sauropod’ and ‘French Bothriospondylus’, and has been considered a brachiosaurid by most authors. If correctly identified, this would make the specimen the earliest known titanosauriform. Coupled with its relatively complete nature and the rarity of Oxfordian sauropod remains in general, this is an important specimen for understanding the early evolution of Titanosauriformes. Full preparation and description of this specimen, known from teeth, vertebrae and most of the appendicular skeleton of a single individual, recognises it as a distinct taxon: Vouivria damparisensis gen. et sp. nov. Phylogenetic analysis of a data matrix comprising 77 taxa (including all putative brachiosaurids) scored for 416 characters recovers a fairly well resolved Brachiosauridae. Vouivria is a basal brachiosaurid, confirming its status as the stratigraphically oldest known titanosauriform. Brachiosauridae consists of a paraphyletic array of Late Jurassic forms, with Europasaurus, Vouivria and Brachiosaurus recovered as successively more nested genera that lie outside of a clade comprising (Giraffatitan + Sonorasaurus) + (Lusotitan + (Cedarosaurus + Venenosaurus)). Abydosaurus forms an unresolved polytomy with the latter five taxa. The Early Cretaceous South American sauropod Padillasaurus was previously regarded as a brachiosaurid, but is here placed within Somphospondyli. A recent study contended that a number of characters used in a previous iteration of this data matrix are ‘biologically related’, and thus should be excluded from phylogenetic analysis. We demonstrate that almost all of these characters show variation between taxa, and implementation of sensitivity analyses, in which these characters are excluded, has no effect on tree topology or resolution. We argue that where there is morphological variation, this should be captured, rather than ignored. Unambiguous brachiosaurid remains are known only from the USA, western Europe and Africa, and the clade spanned the Late Jurassic through to the late Albian/early Cenomanian, with the last known occurrences all from the USA. Regardless of whether their absence from the Cretaceous of Europe, as well as other regions entirely, reflects regional extinctions and genuine absences, or sampling artefacts, brachiosaurids appear to have become globally extinct by the earliest Late Cretaceous.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

The earliest known titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur and the evolution of Brachiosauridae

Mannion

Allain

Moine

2017

PeerJ

112

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“…The general patterns of ‘global’ subsampled diversity shows a steady increase from Middle to the end of Jurassic with a decline through J/K transition ( Upchurch & Mannion, 2012 ; Tennant, Mannion & Upchurch, 2016b ). The relatively high Late Cretaceous subsampled diversity levels can at least be partially explained by the constant discovery of new titanosaurian taxa, especially from Gondwanan continents ( Vieira et al, 2014 ; de Jesus Faria et al, 2015 ; Bandeira et al, 2016 ; Poropat et al, 2016 ), and only recently a more appreciated diversity of diplodocoids (e.g. dicraeosaurids, rebbachisaurids) from relatively poorly sampled regions such as Africa ( Mannion & Barrett, 2013 ; Wilson & Allain, 2015 ; Ibrahim et al, 2016 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How has our knowledge of dinosaur diversity through geologic time changed through research history?

Chiarenza

Baron

2018

PeerJ

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Assessments of dinosaur macroevolution at any given time can be biased by the historical publication record. Recent studies have analysed patterns in dinosaur diversity that are based on secular variations in the numbers of published taxa. Many of these have employed a range of approaches that account for changes in the shape of the taxonomic abundance curve, which are largely dependent on databases compiled from the primary published literature. However, how these ‘corrected’ diversity patterns are influenced by the history of publication remains largely unknown. Here, we investigate the influence of publication history between 1991 and 2015 on our understanding of dinosaur evolution using raw diversity estimates and shareholder quorum subsampling for the three major subgroups: Ornithischia, Sauropodomorpha, and Theropoda. We find that, while sampling generally improves through time, there remain periods and regions in dinosaur evolutionary history where diversity estimates are highly volatile (e.g. the latest Jurassic of Europe, the mid-Cretaceous of North America, and the Late Cretaceous of South America). Our results show that historical changes in database compilation can often substantially influence our interpretations of dinosaur diversity. ‘Global’ estimates of diversity based on the fossil record are often also based on incomplete, and distinct regional signals, each subject to their own sampling history. Changes in the record of taxon abundance distribution, either through discovery of new taxa or addition of existing taxa to improve sampling evenness, are important in improving the reliability of our interpretations of dinosaur diversity. Furthermore, the number of occurrences and newly identified dinosaurs is still rapidly increasing through time, suggesting that it is entirely possible for much of what we know about dinosaurs at the present to change within the next 20 years.

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“…Thickened branch sections indicate approximate temporal range for each terminal taxon. Temporal ranges of taxa were taken from multiple sources (Borsuk-Bialynicka 1977;Upchurch et al 2004;Weishampel et al 2004;de Jesus Faria et al 2015). Open circles at nodes indicate a node-defined clade name.…”

Section: Phylogenetic Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

An articulated cervical series of Alamosaurus sanjuanensis Gilmore, 1922 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from Texas: new perspective on the relationships of North America's last giant sauropod

Tykoski

Fiorillo

2016

Journal of Systematic Palaeontology

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The sauropod dinosaur Alamosaurus sanjuanensis Gilmore, 1922 has been known from Maastrichtian deposits of southwestern North America for nearly a century. Alamosaurus is the youngest sauropod taxon known in North America. Originally described from an isolated scapula and ischium from New Mexico, more of Alamosaurus was revealed by an incomplete skeleton from southern Utah. Additional referred specimens from western Texas provided the first few examples of cervical, dorsal and sacral vertebrae known for the taxon, but these came from relatively small and immature individuals. Here we describe an articulated series of cervical vertebrae of a large, mature titanosaur from Big Bend National Park, Texas, and provide evidence that the specimen can be referred to A. sanjuanensis. The specimen represents the first articulated cervical vertebral series described for the taxon, which clarifies aspects of cervical vertebral anatomy and provides at least one new diagnostic character for Alamosaurus. Many previous cladistic analyses found Alamosaurus to be a saltasaurid titanosaur, sometimes closely related to the Asian taxon Opisthocoelicaudia skarzynskii. We present cladistic analyses incorporating new data from this and other specimens from Big Bend National Park. The first places Alamosaurus as a lithostrotian titanosaur outside Saltasauridae. The second analysis, with greater focus on South American titanosaurs, finds Alamosaurus allied to Lognkosauria, a clade of South American titanosaurs notable for giant size and exceptionally robust necks. This relationship may be more congruent with the fossil record than hypotheses of phylogeny that would require saltasaurid titanosaurs to inhabit northern Laramidia, Beringia and Central Asia through the late Campanian and Maastrichtian while leaving no record of their presence.

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Cretaceous sauropod diversity and taxonomic succession in South America

Cited by 30 publications

References 62 publications

The earliest known titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur and the evolution of Brachiosauridae

The earliest known titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur and the evolution of Brachiosauridae

How has our knowledge of dinosaur diversity through geologic time changed through research history?

An articulated cervical series of Alamosaurus sanjuanensis Gilmore, 1922 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from Texas: new perspective on the relationships of North America's last giant sauropod

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