The Fossil Record of Parasitism: Its Extent and Taphonomic Constraints

Baets, Kenneth De; Huntley, John Warren; Klompmaker, Adiël A.; Schiffbauer, James D.; Muscente, A.D.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-52233-9_1

Cited by 28 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 259 publications

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“…The assemblage strongly suggests that it was composed by necrophagous and predaceous flies (see below a detailed argumentation). We here propose the term "necrophagous trap" for this taphonomic phenomenon, which falls into what is defined as a conservation trap, a concept recently reviewed 48 . The term and concept "necrophagous trap" could also be used for other kinds of palaeontological outcrops such as those in tar pits and pseudokarstic pits, involving insects and/or vertebrate scavengers and carnivores 7 , 49 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Necrophagy by insects in Oculudentavis and other lizard body fossils preserved in Cretaceous amber

Solórzano-Kraemer

Peñalver

Herbert

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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When a vertebrate carcass begins its decay in terrestrial environments, a succession of different necrophagous arthropod species, mainly insects, are attracted. Trophic aspects of the Mesozoic environments are of great comparative interest, to understand similarities and differences with extant counterparts. Here, we comprehensively study several exceptional Cretaceous amber pieces, in order to determine the early necrophagy by insects (flies in our case) on lizard specimens, ca. 99 Ma old. To obtain well-supported palaeoecological data from our amber assemblages, special attention has been paid in the analysis of the taphonomy, succession (stratigraphy), and content of the different amber layers, originally resin flows. In this respect, we revisited the concept of syninclusion, establishing two categories to make the palaeoecological inferences more accurate: eusyninclusions and parasyninclusions. We observe that resin acted as a “necrophagous trap”. The lack of dipteran larvae and the presence of phorid flies indicates decay was in an early stage when the process was recorded. Similar patterns to those in our Cretaceous cases have been observed in Miocene ambers and actualistic experiments using sticky traps, which also act as “necrophagous traps”; for example, we observed that flies were indicative of the early necrophagous stage, but also ants. In contrast, the absence of ants in our Late Cretaceous cases confirms the rareness of ants during the Cretaceous and suggests that early ants lacked this trophic strategy, possibly related to their sociability and recruitment foraging strategies, which developed later in the dimensions we know them today. This situation potentially made necrophagy by insects less efficient in the Mesozoic.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Necrophagy by insects in Oculudentavis and other lizard body fossils preserved in Cretaceous amber

Solórzano-Kraemer

Peñalver

Herbert

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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“…Parasites might be an especially good example in this context. Many groups of parasites are highly diverse today but most have poor preservation in the past, associated with two distinct fossil datasets − rare exceptionally preserved specimens that can be used to build a morphological matrix versus more common eggs or trace fossils that can only be assigned to higher groupings (De Baets et al, 2021), potentially better suited to the use of clade constraints (Warnock and Engelstädter, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting the F in FBD analyses: tree constraints or morphological data ?

Barido‐Sottani

Pohle

Baets

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The fossilized birth-death (FBD) process provides an ideal model for inferring phylogenies from both extant and fossil taxa. Using this approach, fossils (with or without character data) are directly considered as part of the tree. This leads to a statistically coherent prior on divergence times, where the variance associated with node ages reflects uncertainty in the placement of fossil taxa in the phylogeny. Since fossils are typically not associated with molecular sequences, additional information is required to place fossils in the tree. Previously, this information has been provided in two different forms: using topological constraints, where the user specifies monophyletic clades based on established taxonomy, or so-called total-evidence analyses, which use a morphological data matrix with data for both fossil and extant specimens in addition to the molecular alignment. In this work, we use simulations to evaluate these different approaches to handling fossil placement in FBD analyses, both in ideal conditions and in datasets including uncertainty or even errors. We also explore how rate variation in fossil recovery or diversification rates impacts these approaches. We find that the extant topology is well recovered under all methods of fossil placement. Divergence times are similarly well recovered across all methods, with the exception of constraints which contain errors. These results are consistent with expectations: in FBD inferences, divergence times are mostly informed by fossil ages, so variations in the position of fossils strongly impact these estimates. On the other hand, the placement of extant taxa in the phylogeny is driven primarily by the molecular alignment. We see similar patterns in datasets which include rate variation, however one notable difference is that relative errors in extant divergence times increase when more variation is included in the dataset, for all approaches using topological constraints, and particularly for constraints with errors. Finally, we show that trees recovered under the FBD model are more accurate than those estimated using non-FBD (i.e., non-time calibrated) inference. This result holds even with the use of erroneous fossil constraints and model misspecification under the FBD. Overall, our results underscore the importance of core taxonomic research, including morphological data collection and species descriptions, irrespective of the approach to handling phylogenetic uncertainty using the FBD process.

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“…Also in this case, the choice and use of appropriate technologies (such as mass spectrometry methodology, appropriate databases, etc.) is essential to obtain more data and thus pose new questions on phylogenetic hypotheses [ 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ].…”

Section: Twenty-first-century Paleontology: More Data More Technology...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Plea for a New Synthesis: From Twentieth-Century Paleobiology to Twenty-First-Century Paleontology and Back Again

Tamborini

2022

Biology

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In this paper, I will briefly discuss the elements of novelty and continuity between twentieth-century paleobiology and twenty-first-century paleontology. First, I will outline the heated debate over the disciplinary status of paleontology in the mid-twentieth century. Second, I will analyze the main theoretical issue behind this debate by considering two prominent case studies within the broader paleobiology agenda. Third, I will turn to twenty-first century paleontology and address five representative research topics. In doing so, I will characterize twenty-first century paleontology as a science that strives for more data, more technology, and more integration. Finally, I will outline what twenty-first-century paleontology might inherit from twentieth-century paleobiology: the pursuit of and plea for a new synthesis that could lead to a second paleobiological revolution. Following in the footsteps of the paleobiological revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the paleobiological revolution of the twenty-first century would enable paleontologists to gain strong political representation and argue with a decisive voice at the “high table” on issues such as the expanded evolutionary synthesis, the conservation of Earth’s environment, and global climate change.

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The Fossil Record of Parasitism: Its Extent and Taphonomic Constraints

Cited by 28 publications

References 259 publications

Necrophagy by insects in Oculudentavis and other lizard body fossils preserved in Cretaceous amber

Necrophagy by insects in Oculudentavis and other lizard body fossils preserved in Cretaceous amber

Putting the F in FBD analyses: tree constraints or morphological data ?

A Plea for a New Synthesis: From Twentieth-Century Paleobiology to Twenty-First-Century Paleontology and Back Again

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