Drilling Predation on Serpulid Polychaetes (Ditrupa arietina) from the Pliocene of the Cope Basin, Murcia Region, Southeastern Spain

We report quantitative analyses of drilling predation on the free-living, tube-dwelling serpulid polychaete Ditrupa arietina from the Cope Cabo marine succession (Pliocene, Spain). Tubes of D. arietina are abundant in the sampled units: 9 bulk samples from 5 horizons yielded ∼5925 specimens of D. arietina. Except for fragmentation, tubes were well preserved. Complete specimens ranged from 3.1 to 13.4 mm in length and displayed allometric growth patterns, with larger specimens being relatively slimmer. Drilled Ditrupa tubes were observed in all samples. Drillholes, identified as Oichnus paraboloides, were characterized by circular to elliptical outline (drillhole eccentricity increased with its diameter), parabolic vertical profile, outer diameter larger than inner diameter, penetration of one tube wall only, narrow range of drill-hole sizes, and non-random (anterior) distribution of drillholes. A total of 233 drilled specimens were identified, with drilling frequencies varying across horizons from 2.7% to 21% (3.9% for pooled data). Many tube fragments were broken across a drillhole suggesting that the reported frequencies are conservative and that biologically-facilitated (drill-hole induced) fragmentation hampers fossil preservation of complete serpulid tubes. No failed or repaired holes were observed. Multiple complete drillholes were present (3.9%). Drilled specimens were significantly smaller than undrilled specimens and tube length and drill-hole diameter were weakly correlated. The results suggest that drillholes were produced by a size-selective, site-stereotypic predatory organism of unknown affinity. The qualitative and quantitative patterns reported here are mostly consistent with previous reports on recent and fossil Ditrupa and reveal parallels with drilling patterns documented for scaphopod mollusks, a group that is ecologically and morphologically similar to Ditrupa. Consistent with previous studies, the results suggest that free-dwelling serpulid polychaetes are preyed upon by drilling predators and may provide a viable source of data on biotic interactions in the fossil record

Functional diversity of marine ecosystems after the Late Permian mass extinction event

Article can be accessed from http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n3/full/ngeo2079.htmlThe Late Permian mass extinction event was the most severe such crisis of the past 500 million years and occurred during an episode of global warming. It is assumed to have had significant ecological impact, but its effects on marine ecosystem functioning are unknown and the patterns of marine recovery are debated. We analysed the fossil occurrences of all known Permian-Triassic benthic marine genera and assigned each to a functional group based on their inferred life habit. We show that despite the selective extinction of 62-74% of marine genera there was no significant loss of functional diversity at the global scale, and only one novel mode of life originated in the extinction aftermath. Early Triassic marine ecosystems were not as ecologically depauperate as widely assumed, which explains the absence of a Cambrian-style Triassic radiation in higher taxa. Functional diversity was, however, significantly reduced in particular regions and habitats, such as tropical reefs, and at these scales recovery varied spatially and temporally, probably driven by migration of surviving groups. Marine ecosystems did not return to their pre-extinction state, however, and radiation of previously subordinate groups such as motile, epifaunal grazers led to greater functional evenness by the Middle Triassic

On the relationship between the macroevolutionary trajectories of morphological integration and morphological disparity

How does the organization of phenotypes relate to their propensity to vary? How do evolutionary changes in this organization affect large-scale phenotypic evolution? Over the last decade, studies of morphological integration and modularity have renewed our understanding of the organizational and variational properties of complex phenotypes. Much effort has been made to unravel the connections among the genetic, developmental, and functional contexts leading to differential integration among morphological traits and individuation of variational modules. Yet, their macroevolutionary consequences on the dynamics of morphological disparity-the large-scale variety of organismal designs-are still largely unknown. Here, I investigate the relationship between morphological integration and morphological disparity throughout the entire evolutionary history of crinoids (echinoderms). Quantitative analyses of interspecific patterns of variation and covariation among characters describing the stem, cup, arm, and tegmen of the crinoid body do not show any significant concordance between the temporal trajectories of disparity and overall integration. Nevertheless, the results reveal marked differences in the patterns of integration for Palaeozoic and post-Palaeozoic crinoids. Post-Palaeozoic crinoids have a higher degree of integration and occupy a different region of the space of integration patterns, corresponding to more heterogeneously structured matrices of correlation among traits. Particularly, increased covariation is observed between subsets of characters from the dorsal cup and from the arms. These analyses show that morphological disparity is not dependent on the overall degree of evolutionary integration but rather on the way integration is distributed among traits. Hence, temporal changes in disparity dynamics are likely constrained by reorganizations of the modularity of the crinoid morphology and not by changes in the variability of individual traits. The differences in integration patterns explain the more stereotyped morphologies of post-Palaeozoic crinoids and, from a broader macroevolutionary perspective, call for a greater attention to the distributional heterogeneities of constraints in morphospace