Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage

Swain, Anshuman; Devereux, Matthew; Fagan, William F.

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102271

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…To explore the effect of sampling efforts on the final structure of the fine-scale species- and genus-level networks, we performed a rarefaction analysis in which we subsampled different proportions of the data (from 0.01 to 1, in increments of 0.01; each repeated 200 times) from each of the four assemblages and measured the Hamming distance (Deza and Deza 2009) between the reconstructed subsampled network and the originally reconstructed network with all the data and normalized for each location for effective comparison. In this context, (normalized) Hamming distance, which takes values from 0 to 1, summarizes the proportion of interactions recovered from the subsampled data in comparison to the whole dataset and can inform about the relative sampling efforts and how strongly the network structure depends on sampling effort (Swain et al 2021). This exercise was performed for networks constructed at the species and genus level and at the major plant group level for each of the four localities.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the ecology of host plant–insect herbivore interactions in the fossil record through bipartite networks

Swain

Maccracken

Fagan³

et al. 2021

Paleobiology

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Plant–insect associations have been a significant component of terrestrial ecology for more than 400 Myr. Exploring these interactions in the fossil record through novel perspectives provides a window into understanding evolutionary and ecological forces that shaped these interactions. For the past several decades, researchers have documented, described, and categorized fossil evidence of these interactions. Drawing on powerful tools from network science, we propose here a bipartite network representation of fossilized plants and their herbivore-induced leaf damage to understand late Paleozoic plant–insect interactions at the local community level. We focus on four assemblages from north-central Texas, but the methods used in this work are general and can be applied to any well-preserved fossil flora. Network analysis can address key questions in the evolution of insect herbivory that often would be difficult to summarize using standard herbivory metrics.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the ecology of host plant–insect herbivore interactions in the fossil record through bipartite networks

Swain

Maccracken

Fagan³

et al. 2021

Paleobiology

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“…This, coupled with the possibility that A. canadensis would have damaged the ventral endites and dorsal spines of the frontal appendages on the substrate if trying to rapidly grab prey from the seafloor (as indicated by our FEA results), contradicts the idea that it was primarily a demersal predator [ 30 , 76 ], particularly of benthic trilobites [ 22 , 27 – 29 , 31 , 32 ]. Instead, A. canadensis had a large diversity of nektonic and pelagic soft-bodied animals to potentially feed upon, including a variety of other euarthropods (especially the common isoxyids and hymenocarines such as Waptia and Canadaspis ), as well as ctenophores, nectocaridids and vetulicolians [ 73 , 75 , 77 , 78 ], leaving other Burgess Shale radiodonts (e.g. Hurdia [ 8 , 79 ], Cambroraster [ 11 ], Stanleycaris [ 21 ] and Titanokorys [ 12 ]), artiopodans (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Raptorial appendages of the Cambrian apex predatorAnomalocaris canadensisare built for soft prey and speed

et al. 2023

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The stem-group euarthropod Anomalocaris canadensis is one of the largest Cambrian animals and is often considered the quintessential apex predator of its time. This radiodont is commonly interpreted as a demersal hunter, responsible for inflicting injuries seen in benthic trilobites. However, controversy surrounds the ability of A. canadensis to use its spinose frontal appendages to masticate or even manipulate biomineralized prey. Here, we apply a new integrative computational approach, combining three-dimensional digital modelling, kinematics, finite-element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to rigorously analyse an A. canadensis feeding appendage and test its morphofunctional limits. These models corroborate a raptorial function, but expose inconsistencies with a capacity for durophagy. In particular, FEA results show that certain parts of the appendage would have experienced high degrees of plastic deformation, especially at the endites, the points of impact with prey. The CFD results demonstrate that outstretched appendages produced low drag and hence represented the optimal orientation for speed, permitting acceleration bursts to capture prey. These data, when combined with evidence regarding the functional morphology of its oral cone, eyes, body flaps and tail fan, suggest that A. canadensis was an agile nektonic predator that fed on soft-bodied animals swimming in a well-lit water column above the benthos. The lifestyle of A. canadensis and that of other radiodonts, including plausible durophages, suggests that niche partitioning across this clade influenced the dynamics of Cambrian food webs, impacting on a diverse array of organisms at different sizes, tiers and trophic levels.

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“…For example, in insect social networks, we might expect to see more informative higher scales that capture more of the emergent coordination of the collective as a whole (e.g. in ant colonies; see Swain, Devereux, et al, 2021).…”

Section: Causal Emergence: Informative Higher Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The kind of noise introduced through observation will often be specific to particular systems under study. Past work has focused on the estimation, and in rare cases, the correction of such noise (Newman, 2018; Freilich et al, 2020; Swain, Devereux, et al, 2021). Beyond such estimation, it can often be difficult to deal with the noise that is inherently present in complex biological systems regardless of whether the noise is from measurement or is inherent to the system in question.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring noise, degeneracy and determinism in biological networks with the einet package

et al. 2022

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The functioning of biological systems depends heavily on the interaction of its constituents at various levels of organization, be it at the subcellular level or at the ecosystem scale. To understand the complexity of such interactions in a more abstract yet workable way, people have turned to networks as a useful representation (Gosak et al., 2018;Gysi & Nowick, 2020). The use of network science and its tools in biology has exploded in the past two decades, owing to the burst of high-resolution data and improved computational capabilities. The application of network science has improved our fundamental understanding of many biological systems and structures, such as food webs (

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Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage

Cited by 7 publications

References 64 publications

Understanding the ecology of host plant–insect herbivore interactions in the fossil record through bipartite networks

Understanding the ecology of host plant–insect herbivore interactions in the fossil record through bipartite networks

Raptorial appendages of the Cambrian apex predatorAnomalocaris canadensisare built for soft prey and speed

Exploring noise, degeneracy and determinism in biological networks with the einet package

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