Late Cretaceous restructuring of terrestrial communities facilitated the end-Cretaceous mass extinction in North America

Mitchell, Jonathan S.; Roopnarine, Peter D.; Angielczyk, Kenneth D.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1202196109

Cited by 68 publications

(76 citation statements)

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“…Characterizing the pattern and tempo of this restructuring is paramount to understanding diversity, biogeography, extinction and replacement between well-sampled North American faunas 8 , and carries significant implications for spatiotemporal patterns of faunal composition on a global scale 1,[9][10] . However, poor sampling of the apex predator niche in the midCretaceous is a persistent and wide-ranging problem 11 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Neovenatorid theropods are apex predators in the Late Cretaceous of North America

Zanno

Makovicky

2013

Nat Commun

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Allosauroid theropods were a diverse and widespread radiation of Jurassic-Cretaceous megapredators. Achieving some of the largest body sizes among theropod dinosaurs, these colossal hunters dominated terrestrial ecosystems until a faunal turnover redefined apex predator guild occupancy during the final 20 million years of the Cretaceous. Here we describe a giant new species of allosauroid -Siats meekerorum gen. et sp. nov. -providing the first evidence for the cosmopolitan clade Neovenatoridae in North America. Siats is the youngest allosauroid yet discovered from the continent and demonstrates that the clade endured there into the Late Cretaceous. The discovery provides new evidence for ecologic sympatry of large allosauroids and small-bodied tyrannosauroids. These data support the hypothesis that extinction of Allosauroidea in terrestrial ecosystems of North America permitted ecological release of tyrannosauroids, which went on to dominate end-Cretaceous food webs.

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confidence: 99%

Neovenatorid theropods are apex predators in the Late Cretaceous of North America

Zanno

Makovicky

2013

Nat Commun

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“…Parasites and symbionts specialized to live with species that are vulnerable to physical calamities would be casualties if their hosts disappeared, but such collateral or secondary extinction would likely not spread beyond the specific association. Models of ecosystem disruption resulting from sharp reductions in productivity indicate that predatory species and their victims may face extinction because of destabilized predator-prey and competitive interactions (Roopnarine 2006;Roopnarine et al 2007;Mitchell et al 2012;Roopnarine and Angielczyk 2012). The trigger for such cascading collateral losses, however, is external to the system (Vermeij 2004b).…”

Section: Invalid Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reining in the Red Queen: the dynamics of adaptation and extinction reexamined

Vermeij¹,

Roopnarine²

2013

Paleobiology

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Abstract.-One of the most enduring evolutionary metaphors is Van Valen's (1973) Red Queen. According to this metaphor, as one species in a community adapts by becoming better able to acquire and defend resources, species with which it interacts are adversely affected. If those other species do not continuously adapt to compensate for this biotically caused deterioration, they will be driven to extinction. Continuous adaptation of all species in a community prevents any single species from gaining a long-term advantage; this amounts to the Red Queen running in place. We have critically examined the assumptions on which the Red Queen metaphor was founded. We argue that the Red Queen embodies three demonstrably false assumptions: (1) evolutionary adaptation is continuous; (2) organisms are important agents of extinction; and (3) evolution is a zero-sum process in which living things divide up an unchanging quantity of resources. Changes in the selective regime need not always elicit adaptation, because most organisms function adequately under many ''suboptimal'' conditions and often compensate by demonstrating adaptive flexibility. Likewise, ecosystems are organized in such a way that they tend to be robust and capable of absorbing invasions and extinctions, at least up to a point. With a simple evolutionary game involving three species, we show that Red Queen dynamics (continuous adaptation by all interacting species) apply in only a very small minority of possible outcomes. Importantly, cooperation and facilitation among species enable competitors to increase ecosystem productivity and therefore to enlarge the pool and turnover of resources. The Red Queen reigns only under a few unusual circumstances.

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“…Changes of top predators affecting the prey fauna is a major factor causing faunal turnovers (Hunter & Price 1992, Ripple et al 2010, Mitchell et al 2012, thus it appears like E. foordi contributed to the stability of this Devonian ecosystem.…”

Section: Trophic Interactions Within the Escuminac Assemblagementioning

confidence: 99%

Early establishment of vertebrate trophic interactions: Food web structure in Middle to Late Devonian fish assemblages with exceptional fossilization

Chevrinais¹,

Jacquet²,

Cloutier³

2017

Bull. Geosci.

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In past and present ecosystems, trophic interactions determine material and energy transfers among species, regulating population dynamics and community stability. Food web studies in past ecosystems are helpful to assess the persistence of ecosystem structure throughout geological times and to explore the existence of general principles of food web assembly. We determined and compared the trophic structure of two Devonian fish assemblages [(1) the Escuminac assemblage (ca. 380 Ma), Miguasha, eastern Canada and (2) the Lode assemblage (ca. 390 Ma), Straupe, Latvia] with a closer look at the Escuminac assemblage. Both localities are representative of Middle to Late Devonian aquatic vertebrate assemblages in terms of taxonomic richness (ca. 20 species), phylogenetic diversity (all major groups of lower vertebrates) and palaeoenvironment (palaeoestuaries). Fossil food web structures were assessed using different kinds of direct (i.e. digestive contents and bite marks in fossils) and indirect (e.g. ecomorphological measurements, stratigraphic species co-occurrences) indicators. First, the relationships between predator and prey body size established for the Escuminac fishes are comparable to those of recent aquatic ecosystems, highlighting a consistency of aquatic food web structure across geological time. Second, non-metric dimensional scaling on ecomorphological variables and cluster analysis showed a common pattern of functional groups for both fish assemblages; top predators, predators, primary and secondary consumers were identified. We conclude that Devonian communities were organized in multiple trophic levels and that size-based feeding interactions were established early in vertebrate history. • Key words: digestive contents, fossil fish, Devonian, ecomorphology, palaeoecology, bottom-up control, top-down control. Ursulines, Rimouski, Québec, G5L 3A1, Canada; richard_cloutier@uqar.ca The trophic structure of recent ecosystems has long been described as controlled either by lower trophic levels (bottom-up control) or by higher trophic levels (top-down control) depending on species interactions. In extant aquatic ecosystems, both bottom-up and top-down controls are recognized (McQueen et al. 1989, Menge 2000, Arreguín-Sánchez 2011. Large species are represented in the upper trophic level, but in relatively low abundance, whereas smaller and more abundant species represent lower trophic levels (Cohen et al. 1993) implying that relationships between predator and prey total lengths can be estimated.Trophic interactions in taxonomically, environmentally and temporally diverse ecosystems of the past have been reconstructed based on direct (e.g. digestive contents) and indirect (e.g. species co-occurrences) indicators such as for e.g. the Cambrian (Vannier & Chen 2005, Dunne et al. 2008, Vannier 2012, Devonian (Lebedev 1992, Lukševičs 1992, Novitskaya 1992, Mark-Kurik 1995, Habgood et al. 2003 (Maisey 1994, Wang et al. 2005) and the Quaternary (Nenzén et al. 2014). Most of these studies rely on qualitative d...

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Late Cretaceous restructuring of terrestrial communities facilitated the end-Cretaceous mass extinction in North America

Cited by 68 publications

References 32 publications

Neovenatorid theropods are apex predators in the Late Cretaceous of North America

Neovenatorid theropods are apex predators in the Late Cretaceous of North America

Reining in the Red Queen: the dynamics of adaptation and extinction reexamined

Early establishment of vertebrate trophic interactions: Food web structure in Middle to Late Devonian fish assemblages with exceptional fossilization

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