Modern Death Assemblages and Pleistocene Fossil Assemblages in Open Coast High Energy Environments, San Nicolas Island, California

Russel, Michael

doi:10.2307/3514882

Cited by 24 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…This low fidelity would be unrelated to the narrow width or possibly degraded health of the Livorno shelf. Clear mixtures of rock‐dwelling and sand‐dwelling species occur in the death assemblages of sand pockets in many rocky areas (e.g., Bosence 1979; Russell 1991; Zuschin & Oliver 2003), leading to poor live–dead agreement when, owing to logistical challenges, the living community of one patch type is better sampled.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological fidelity of open marine molluscan death assemblages: effects of post-mortem transportation, shelf health, and taphonomic inertia

Kidwell

2008

LET

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M. 2008: Ecological fidelity of open marine molluscan death assemblages: effects of post-mortem transportation, shelf health, and taphonomic inertia. Lethaia , Vol. 41, Based on 38 molluscan datasets from modern open shelf settings, disturbance from human activities -especially anthropogenic eutrophication (AE) -has the strongest negative effect on the fidelity of death assemblages to local living communities, suggesting that the composition of the death assemblage has lagged behind changes in the living community (taphonomic inertia). Fidelity is poorest where shelves are both AE and narrow ( ≤ 50 km from shore to the 200-m isobath), suggesting that cross-shelf post-mortem transportation might contribute bias, but this does not dominate and shelf width does not emerge as significant among non-AE shelves. Clear signatures of post-mortem transportation are present only in four shoreface datasets, all from wide shelves, that receive abundant allochthonous specimens from adjacent estuaries or rocky intertidal zones.Shelves experiencing minimal human impact yield fidelity estimates that are most relevant for evaluating (paleo)ecological trends. There, death assemblages are on average 25% richer than a single census of the living molluscan community and show high similarity in taxonomic composition and species relative abundance that, based on a very limited number of studies, is comparable to or better than the agreement found among successive live censuses. Molluscan death assemblages on open shelves are thus generally good samplers of living community diversity and composition under natural conditions, and where the community is undergoing anthropogenic modification, retain a strong record of the precursor community. Taphonomic inertia will be strongest where the change in the community has been especially strong (outside the normal range of natural variability) and/or where the 'new' community has lower net rates of shell input than its precursor, so that input only slowly dilutes the time-averaged skeletal remains of the 'old' community.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological fidelity of open marine molluscan death assemblages: effects of post-mortem transportation, shelf health, and taphonomic inertia

Kidwell

2008

LET

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“…The other cool-water chiton at Cormorant Point is Cryptochiton stelleri, which presently ranges from the Aleutian Islands to San Nicolas Island, but is rare south of Monterey Bay . Kanter (1980), Russell (1991), and Seapy and Littler (1993) did not report C. stelleri in modern surveys of intertidal invertebrates on San Nicolas Island. Berry and Hubbs (1954) note, however, that C. stelleri is known from some Holocene shell middens in southern California and northern Baja California and Vedder and Norris (1963) report it in middens on San Nicolas Island.…”

Section: Southern California: San Nicolas Islandmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One other gastropod found at Cormorant Point, Siphonaria brannani, is found only in southern California, from San Miguel Island to Santa Barbara Island (Seapy and Littler, 1993) or possibly to Santa Catalina Island (Abbott, 1974). However, it has not been reported from either San Nicolas Island (Kanter, 1980;Russell, 1991;Seapy and Littler, 1993) or nearby San Clemente Island (Seapy and Littler, 1993; LACM, Malacology Section records). Two other cool-water species found in 80,000 yr BP terrace deposits on San Nicolas Island are both chitons.…”

Section: Southern California: San Nicolas Islandmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a single, modern specimen of T. montereyi from San Nicolas Island in collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (LACM 147862). It is not likely a common species around the island, however, as Kanter (1980), Russell (1991) and Seapy and Littler (1993) did not report either T. brunnea or T. montereyi from modern intertidal environments on San Nicolas Island. Two other species of gastropods, Fusitriton oregonense and Calliostoma ligatum, are found from Alaska to San Diego O'Clair and O'Clair, 1998), but are rare (C. ligatum), or found only in deeper water (4148 m) (F. oregonense) off southern California.…”

Section: Southern California: San Nicolas Islandmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A cool eastern Pacific Ocean at the close of the Last Interglacial complex

Muhs

Simmons

Kennedy³

et al. 2006

Quaternary Science Reviews

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New high-precision thermal ionization mass-spectrometric (TIMS) U-series ages of solitary corals (Balanophyllia elegans) from several marine terrace localities along the California and southern Oregon coasts date to the 80,000 yr BP high stand of sea, correlative with marine isotope substage 5a, late in the last interglacial complex. Ages of multiple corals from localities north of Point An˜o Nuevo (central California) and San Nicolas Island (southern California) suggest that this high sea stand could have lasted at least 8000 yr, from 84,000 to 76,000 yr BP. These ages overlap with those from marine deposits on tectonically stable Bermuda and tectonically emergent Barbados. Higher-elevation terraces at two California localities, in the Palos Verdes Hills and on San Nicolas Island, have corals with ages that range mostly from 121,000 to 116,000 yr BP, correlative with marine isotope substage 5e. These ages are similar to those reported for other terraces in southern California but are younger than some ages reported from Hawaii, Barbados and the Bahamas.Marine terrace faunas are excellent proxies for nearshore marine paleotemperatures during past high sea stands. Terraces on the Palos Verdes Hills and San Nicolas Island dated to the 120,000 yr BP high sea stand have dominantly zoogeographically ''neutral'' species in exposed coastal localities, indicating nearshore waters similar to those of today. In contrast, 80,000 yr BP, exposed coastal localities typically have molluscan faunas characterized by numerous extralimital northern species and a lack of extralimital southern species. These fossil assemblages are indicative of nearshore water temperatures that were cooler than modern temperatures at 80,000 yr BP. Waters at least as warm as today's at 120,000 yr BP and cooler than present at 80,000 yr BP are in excellent agreement with marine alkenone records and coastal vegetation records derived from pollen data, from both southern and northern California. Decreased insolation or increased upwelling seem inadequate to explain the cool waters off the Pacific Coast from southern Oregon to southern California at 80,000 yr BP. We propose that a stronger California Current (or at least one with a greater component of subarctic waters) may explain cooler-than-modern coastal waters during the 80,000 yr BP high sea stand. r

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“…However, studies are typically restricted to single groups of organisms. In aquatic systems, fidelity studies focus primarily on molluscs [18,19,[32][33][34][35], with only a few case studies dedicated to other groups [36][37][38][39][40]. The emerging consensus points to high live-dead fidelity [35], although b-diversity may often be somewhat reduced [35] and alpha diversity (a-diversity) typically elevated [32,33,35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surrogate taxa and fossils as reliable proxies of spatial biodiversity patterns in marine benthic communities

Tyler

Kowalewski

2017

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Rigorous documentation of spatial heterogeneity (b-diversity) in presentday and preindustrial ecosystems is required to assess how marine communities respond to environmental and anthropogenic drivers. However, the overwhelming majority of contemporary and palaeontological assessments have centred on single higher taxa. To evaluate the validity of single taxa as community surrogates and palaeontological proxies, we compared macrobenthic communities and sympatric death assemblages at 52 localities in Onslow Bay (NC, USA). Compositional heterogeneity did not differ significantly across datasets based on live molluscs, live non-molluscs, and all live organisms. Death assemblages were less heterogeneous spatially, likely reflecting homogenization by time-averaging. Nevertheless, live and dead datasets were greater than 80% congruent in pairwise comparisons to the literature estimates of b-diversity in other marine ecosystems, yielded concordant bathymetric gradients, and produced nearly identical ordinations consistently delineating habitats. Congruent estimates from molluscs and non-molluscs suggest that single groups can serve as reliable community proxies. High spatial fidelity of death assemblages supports the emerging paradigm of Conservation Palaeobiology. Integrated analyses of ecological and palaeontological data based on surrogate taxa can quantify anthropogenic changes in marine ecosystems and advance our understanding of spatial and temporal aspects of biodiversity.

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Modern Death Assemblages and Pleistocene Fossil Assemblages in Open Coast High Energy Environments, San Nicolas Island, California

Cited by 24 publications

References 0 publications

Ecological fidelity of open marine molluscan death assemblages: effects of post-mortem transportation, shelf health, and taphonomic inertia

Ecological fidelity of open marine molluscan death assemblages: effects of post-mortem transportation, shelf health, and taphonomic inertia

A cool eastern Pacific Ocean at the close of the Last Interglacial complex

Surrogate taxa and fossils as reliable proxies of spatial biodiversity patterns in marine benthic communities

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