A5014175451- Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Marine Biology and Ecology Research
- Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Species Distribution and Climate Change
- Geochemistry and Geologic Mapping
- Marine Bivalve and Aquaculture Studies
- Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
- Geological Studies and Exploration
- Data Analysis with R
- Marine and coastal plant biology
- Cephalopods and Marine Biology
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Marine and environmental studies
- Ecosystem dynamics and resilience
- Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Complex Systems and Decision Making
- Mollusks and Parasites Studies
- Physiological and biochemical adaptations
- Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology
- Isotope Analysis in Ecology
- demographic modeling and climate adaptation
- Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies
- Morphological variations and asymmetry
- Plant Diversity and Evolution
Benedictine University
2010-2024
University of California, Riverside
2011
University of West Georgia
2005-2009
Duke University
2000-2007
University of Chicago
2001
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
2001
University of California, Santa Barbara
2001
Virginia Tech
2001
University of Cincinnati
2001
Global diversity curves reflect more than just the number of taxa that have existed through time: they also mirror variation in nature fossil record and way is reported. These sampling effects are best quantified by assembling analyzing large numbers locality-specific biotic inventories. Here, we introduce a new database this kind for Phanerozoic marine invertebrates. We apply four substantially distinct analytical methods estimate taxonomic quantifying correcting time Variation introduced...
The maximum size of organisms has increased enormously since the initial appearance life >3.5 billion years ago (Gya), but pattern and timing this increase is poorly known. Consequently, controls underlying spectrum global biota have been difficult to evaluate. Our period-level compilation largest known fossil demonstrates that by 16 orders magnitude first appeared in record. great majority accounted for 2 discrete steps approximately equal magnitude: middle Paleoproterozoic Era (≈1.9...
The Geozoic encompasses the 3.6 Ga interval in Earth history when life has existed. Over this time, diversified from exclusively tiny, single-celled organisms to include large, complex multicellular forms. Just how and why diversification occurred been a major area of interest for paleontologists evolutionary biologists centuries. Here, we compile data on organism size throughout fossil record three domains life. We describe canonical trends evolution body size, synthesize current...
How does the choice of size metric, specimen selection, and taxonomic level affect results macroevolutionary or ecological analyses? Four molluscan data sets are used to address this question as follows. First, relationships among various metrics examined using a morphometric set Late Cretaceous–Oligocene veneroid bivalves. Second, relationship between bulk-sampled specimens species' type is bivalves gastropods from Coffee Sand (Upper Cretaceous, Mississippi). Third, same mollusk-dominated...
Over the past 3.8 billion years, maximum size of life has increased by approximately 18 orders magnitude. Much this increase is associated with two major evolutionary innovations: evolution eukaryotes from prokaryotic cells 1.9 years ago (Ga), and multicellular diversifying unicellular ancestors 0.6 Ga. However, quantitative relationship between organismal structural complexity remains poorly documented. We assessed using a comprehensive dataset that includes level biological for 11 172...
The process of evolution hinders our ability to make large-scale ecological comparisons—such as those encompassing marine biotas spanning the Phanerozoic—because compared entities are taxonomically and morphologically dissimilar. One solution is focus instead on life habits, which repeatedly discovered by taxa because convergence. Such an approach applied a comparison diversity Paleozoic (Cambrian–Devonian) modern from deep-subtidal, soft-substrate habitats. Ecological (richness disparity)...
The average body size of brachiopods from a single habitat type increased gradually by more than two orders magnitude during their initial Cambrian-Devonian radiation. This increase occurred nearly in parallel across all major brachiopod clades (classes and orders) is consistent with Cope's rule: the tendency for to over geological time. not observed within small, constituent (represented here families), which underwent random, unbiased changes. scale-dependence caused preferential...
Barry D. Webby, Florentin Paris, Mary L. Droser, and Ian G. Percival, eds., 2004, Columbia University Press, New York, 484 p. (Hardcover, US $99.50) ISBN 0231-12678-6. Have you heard the joke about time a systematist, taxon-counter, paleoecologist walked into bar? It is not surprising that significant proportion of paleontological attention focused on Cambrian Explosion; it indeed marks rise to dominance skeletonized metazoans emergence most phyla. But Radiation inherently difficult study:...
Fossil marine lineages are generally expected to exhibit long-term trends of increasing body size because inherent fitness advantages or secular changes in environmental conditions. Because empirical documentation this trend during the Paleozoic has been lacking for most taxonomic groups, magnitude, timing, and breadth have remained elusive. This study uses largest existing database fossil invertebrate sizes from four faunally important phyla document ecosystem-wide well-preserved biotas...
In mid-September 2007, 32 paleontologists gathered at the Smithsonian Institution to spend four days discussing research frontiers in paleoecology, particularly interface with neoecology. They represented expertise throughout Phanerozoic and all major groups of fossilizable organisms. This meeting was timely, given increasing evidence impact climate change on ecosystems our modern world. The vast repository paleoecological data past environmental concomitant ecological responses, observed...
Bivalves and gastropods, prominent members of the Modern Evolutionary Fauna, are traditionally noted for sharing remarkably similar global diversity trajectories environmental distributions throughout Phanerozoic. By comparing their fossil occurrences at several scales within a finely resolved geographic, environmental, temporal framework, it is possible to eval- uate whether such similarities caused primarily by intrinsic macroevolutionary factors or ex- trinsic ecological factors. Using...
Body size is one of the most significant organismal characteristics because its strong association with nearly all important ecological and physiological characteristics. While direct body mass measurement (or estimation from other metrics) not feasible extinct taxa, volume a measurable general proxy for fossil size. This study explores reliability several metrics that can be used to estimate Paleozoic invertebrates various sizes, shapes, taxonomic affinities, habits. The ATD model, based on...
The ecological traits and functional capabilities of marine animals have changed significantly since their origin in the late Precambrian. These changes can be analysed quantitatively using multi-dimensional parameter spaces which lifestyles species are represented by particular combinations values. Here, we present models that describe filling this 'ecospace' during metazoan diversification. reflect varying assumptions about processes drove diversification; they contrast diffusive expansion...
Other| December 01, 2003 Comparative Taxonomic Richness and Abundance of Late Ordovician Gastropods Bivalves in Mollusc-rich Strata the Cincinnati Arch PHILIP M. NOVACK-GOTTSHALL; NOVACK-GOTTSHALL 1Department Biology, Box 90338, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0338, pn2@duke.edu Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar ARNOLD I. MILLER 2Department Geology, PO 210013, University Cincinnati, OH 45221-0013 Author Article Information Publisher: SEPM Society Sedimentary...
Abstract Evolutionary paleoecologists have proposed many explanations for Phanerozoic trends in ecospace utilization, including escalation, seafood through time, filling of an empty ecospace, and tiering, among others. These hypotheses can be generalized into four models functional diversification within a life-habit framework (functional-trait space). The also incorporate concepts community assembly, diversity, evolutionary diversification, morphological disparity. redundancy model produces...
Abstract Models of functional ecospace diversification within life-habit frameworks (functional-trait spaces) are increasingly used across community ecology, and paleoecology. In general, these models can be represented by four basic processes, three that have driven causes one occurs through a passive process. The include redundancy (caused forms canalization), partitioning (specialization), expansion (divergent novelty), but they also share important dynamical similarities with the neutral...
Geological time units are the lingua franca of earth sciences: they are a terminological convenience, a vernacular any geological conversation, and prerequisite geo-scientific writing found throughout in earth science dictionaries and textbooks. Time include terms formalized by stratigraphic committees as well informal constructs erected ad hoc to communicate more efficiently. With these terms we partition Earth’s history into utilitarian intuitively understandable time segments that...
Paleontologists have long speculated that the bizarre, giant Ordovician gastropods Maclurites Le Sueur, 1818 and Maclurina Ulrich Scofield, 1897 lived more like suspension-feeding oysters than typical algivorous snails. Geometric eigenshape morphometrics demonstrate plausibility of this lifestyle, but with a twist. The apertures these were small ellipsoids when young, transitioning rapidly to polygonal morphologies at maturity, angulations (sinuses) occurring in regions associated...
Many authors have noted the apparent ‘decoupling’ of taxonomic and ecological severity mass extinction events, with no widely accepted mechanistic explanation for this pattern having been offered. Here, we test between two key factors that potentially influence severity: biosphere entropy (a measure functional redundancy), degree selectivity (in terms deviation from a random respect to entities). While theoretical simulations suggest Shannon given community prior an event determines expected...
Abstract The Cambrian and Ordovician radiations marked the origins of all major echinoderm clades established their Phanerozoic ecological blueprint. Recent claims modest innovation early echinoderms other animals suggest constraints on novelty during phyla. Here, we document life‐habit richness, body size, tiering, habitat usage, mobility, diet foraging habits 366 Cambrian–Ordovician genera across a time‐scaled phylogeny to identify timing impact novelty. Most were sedentary, filter‐feeding...