scholarly journals A new paleoecological look at the Dinwoody Formation (Lower Triassic, western USA): intrinsic versus extrinsic controls on ecosystem recovery after the end-Permian mass extinction

2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (5) ◽  
pp. 854-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hofmann ◽  
Michael Hautmann ◽  
Hugo Bucher
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Stress ◽  
Beta Diversity ◽  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Ecosystem Recovery ◽  
Diversity Pattern ◽  
Marine Habitats ◽  
Low Diversity ◽  
Permian Mass Extinction

The Dinwoody Formation of the western United States represents an important archive of Early Triassic ecosystems in the immediate aftermath of the end-Permian mass extinction. We present a systematic description and a quantitative paleoecological analysis of its benthic faunas in order to reconstruct benthic associations and to explore the temporal and spatial variations of diversity, ecological structure and taxonomic composition throughout the earliest Triassic of the western United States. A total of 15 bivalve species, two gastropod species, and two brachiopod species are recognized in the study area. The paleoecological analysis shows that the oldest Dinwoody communities are characterized by low diversity, low ecological complexity and high dominance of few species. We suggest that this low diversity most likely reflects the consequences of the mass extinction in the first place and not necessarily the persistence of environmental stress. Whereas this diversity pattern persists into younger strata of the Dinwoody Formation in outer shelf environments, an increase in richness, evenness and guild diversity occurred around the Griesbachian–Dienerian boundary in more shallow marine habitats. This incipient recovery towards the end of the Griesbachian is in accordance with observations from other regions and thus probably represents an interregional signal. In contrast to increasing richness within communities (alpha-diversity), beta-diversity remained low during the Griesbachian and Dienerian in the study area. This low beta-diversity reflects a wide environmental and geographical range of taxa during the earliest Triassic, indicating that the increase of within-habitat diversity has not yet led to significant competitive exclusion. We hypothesize that the well-known prevalence of generalized taxa in post-extinction faunas is primarily an effect of reduced competition that allows species to exist through the full range of their fundamental niches, rather than being caused by unusual and uniform environmental stress.

Systematics and paleoecology of Late Cambrian echinoderms from the western United States

1997 ◽  
Vol 71 (6) ◽  
pp. 1091-1109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin D. Sumrall ◽  
James Sprinkle ◽  
Thomas E. Guensburg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Basin ◽  
Rocky Mountains ◽  
New Genus ◽  
Western United States ◽  
New Genus And Species ◽  
Late Cambrian ◽  
Lower Ordovician ◽  
Single Piece ◽  
Low Diversity

Although echinoderm debris is locally common, articulated specimens are rare in Late Cambrian rocks from the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains of the western United States and are mostly associated with hardgrounds. The fauna, including cornute stylophorans, trachelocrinid eocrinoids, solute homoiosteleans, and rare edrioasteroids, includes several members of the archaic Cambrian Evolutionary Fauna, which had already passed its maximum diversity for echinoderms. In addition to the low diversity, articulated specimen abundance is very low, averaging only about one-tenth that found in overlying Lower Ordovician units. The transition between the Cambrian and Paleozoic Evolutionary Faunas for echinoderms in North America apparently occurred rapidly very close to the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary, because no unequivocal examples of the Paleozoic fauna (such as crinoids, glyptocystitid rhombiferans, asteroids, or echinoids) were found in the Late Cambrian sections.New taxa include several cothurnocystid stylophorans assigned to Acuticarpus delticus, new genus and species, Acuticarpus? republicensis, new species, and Archaeocothurnus goshutensis, new genus and species; Scotiaecystis? species, a poorly preserved cornute stylophoran with lamellipores; Minervaecystis? species, a fragmentary solute homoiostelean based on several steles; Tatonkacystis codyensis, new genus and species, a well-preserved trachelocrinid eocrinoid with five unbranched arms bearing numerous brachioles; an unnamed, poorly preserved, epispire-bearing eocrinoid; an unnamed, poorly preserved, globular eocrinoid? lacking epispires; and an unnamed, heavily weathered, edrioasterid edrioasteroid. Nearly all holdfasts found in these Upper Cambrian units are single-piece blastozoan types, probably belonging to trachelocrinid and other eocrinoids. Distinctive columnals and thecal plates of several additional undescribed eocrinoids and other echinoderms were locally abundant and are also described.

Land to sea transitions in vertebrates: the dynamics of colonization

Paleobiology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geerat J. Vermeij ◽  
Ryosuke Motani
Keyword(s):  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Salt Water ◽  
Early Triassic ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Thermal Environments ◽  
Recovery Interval ◽  
Marine Habitats ◽  
Nearshore Environments ◽  
Low Diversity ◽  
Ecosystem Collapse

AbstractVertebrates with terrestrial or freshwater ancestors colonized the sea from the Early Triassic onward and became competitively dominant members of many marine ecosystems throughout the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. The circumstances that led to initial marine colonization have, however, received little attention. One hypothesis is that mass extinction associated with ecosystem collapse provided opportunities for clades of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals to enter marine environments. Another is that competitive pressures in donor ecosystems on land and in freshwater, coupled with abundant food in nearshore marine habitats, favored marine colonization. Here we test these hypotheses by compiling all known secondarily marine amniote clades and their times of colonization. Marine amniotes are defined as animals whose diet consists primarily of marine organisms and whose locomotion includes swimming, diving, or wading in salt water. We compared the number of clades entering during recovery phases from mass extinctions with the rate of entry of clades during nonrecovery intervals of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. We conservatively identify 69 marine colonizations by amniotes. The only recovery interval for which prior mass extinction could have been a trigger for marine entry is the Early Triassic, when four clades colonized the sea over 7 Myr, significantly above the rates at which clades entered during other intervals. High nearshore productivity was a greater enticement to colonization than was a low diversity of potential marine competitors or predators in nearshore environments of a highly competitive terrestrial or freshwater donor biota. Rates of marine entry increased during the Cenozoic, in part because of rising productivity and in part thanks to the participation of warm-blooded birds and mammals, which broadened the range of thermal environments in which initial colonization of the sea became possible.

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