Diversity and faunal changes in the latest Cretaceous dinosaur communities of southwestern Europe

Vila, Bernat; Sellés, Albert G.; Brusatte, Stephen L.

doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2015.07.003

Cited by 47 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…In southwestern Europe, a dinosaur faunal replacement is well documented at the end of the Cretaceous 71 . According to this major faunal change, the upper Campanian-lower Maastrichtian plant-eating dinosaurs, characterized by rhabdodontid ornithopods, nodosaurid ankylosaurs and titanosaurian sauropod taxa, were replaced by numerous new hadrosauroids and titanosaurian taxa.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence of Reproductive Stress in Titanosaurian Sauropods Triggered by an Increase in Ecological Competition

Sellés

Vila

Galobart

2017

Sci Rep

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The occurrence of dinosaur pathologic eggs in the Late Cretaceous of Europe is well known, but their origin remains unclear. Here we expose the results of a detailed sampling of the conspicuous fossil record of Late Cretaceous titanosaurian eggs (oogenus Megaloolithius) from several southwestern Europe basins. After examining more than 450 samples, we observed a remarkable and statistically supported occurrence of multiple pathologic eggs in a relatively short stratigraphic range at the end of the early Maastrichtian, circa 71-70 Ma. All pathologic specimens exhibit multi-layered eggshell condition, a characteristic related to dystocia, or egg retention within the female uterus for an abnormal prolonged period of time. After exploring various scenarios, the occurrence of pathologic eggs is strongly correlated with an intense dinosaur faunal replacement that occurred during the early Maastrichtian in the Ibero-Armorican Island. Given that inter-species competiveness is proved to produce major affects in ecological communities, our results suggest that pathologies in the eggs of European titanosaurians could be a consequence of an increase in reproductive stress triggered by direct ecological competition between different dinosaurs. Thus, the present study provides a new perspective of how dinosaurs might have been affected by ecological/environmental disturbance.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…New taxa reached the Ibero-Armorican domain at some time around the early Maastrichtian-late Maastrichtian boundary. Furthermore, fossil evidence suggest that both associations coexisted for some time 71 . This faunal change can be also recognized on the basis of dinosaur ootaxa (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence of Reproductive Stress in Titanosaurian Sauropods Triggered by an Increase in Ecological Competition

Sellés

Vila

Galobart

2017

Sci Rep

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“…3) With more fossils and a better grasp of the ages and relationships of the formations they are found in, more rigorous statistical studies of dinosaur diversity change will become possible. These have been hugely successful in western North America (e.g., Sheehan et al 1991, Pearson et al 2001, 2002, Fastovsky and Sheehan 2005, Campione and Evans 2011, Brusatte et al 2012, 2015a, Larson et al 2016 and Spain (e.g., Vila et al 2016), and are currently in progress in Romania (e.g., Csiki-Sava et al 2016b). Only through detailed, layer-by-layer sampling, constrained by a robust timescale, can changes in diversity, abundance, and evolutionary rates be calculated over time.…”

Section: Challenges and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This debate persists because the fossil record of latest Cretaceous dinosaurs is incomplete and heavily biased, with only a few regions of the globe preserving an abundance of well-studied and welldated dinosaurs from the several million years before the asteroid impact. Almost all of these sites are in the northern hemisphere, chief among them the Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation and equivalents in western North America (e.g., Hartman et al 2002, Fastovsky andBercovici 2016), as well as similar-aged localities in Spain (e.g., Vila et al 2016) and Romania (e.g., CsikiSava et al 2015CsikiSava et al , 2016b. Very little is known about the final non-avian dinosaurs of the southern continents, and this gaping hole in our knowledge makes it very difficult to conclusively test whether the dinosaur extinction was a sudden, global event or a more drawn out affair that may have proceeded at different paces in different regions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The last dinosaurs of Brazil: The Bauru Group and its implications for the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

Brusatte

Candeiro

Simbras

2017

An. Acad. Bras. Ciênc.

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The non-avian dinosaurs died out at the end of the Cretaceous, ~66 million years ago, after an asteroid impact. The prevailing hypothesis is that the effects of the impact suddenly killed the dinosaurs, but the poor fossil record of latest Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) dinosaurs from outside Laurasia (and even more particularly, North America) makes it difficult to test specific extinction scenarios. Over the past few decades, a wealth of new discoveries from the Bauru Group of Brazil has revealed a unique window into the evolution of terminal Cretaceous dinosaurs from the southern continents. We review this record and demonstrate that there was a diversity of dinosaurs, of varying body sizes, diets, and ecological roles, that survived to the very end of the Cretaceous (Maastrichtian: 72-66 million years ago) in Brazil, including a core fauna of titanosaurian sauropods and abelisaurid and carcharodontosaurid theropods, along with a variety of small-to-mid-sized theropods. We argue that this pattern best fits the hypothesis that southern dinosaurs, like their northern counterparts, were still diversifying and occupying prominent roles in their ecosystems before the asteroid suddenly caused their extinction. However, this hypothesis remains to be tested with more refined paleontological and geochronological data, and we give suggestions for future work.

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“…The study of the faunas in the Iberico-Armorican Island has evidenced a 10ma dinosaur succession with a gradual faunal turnover. In this, the pre-turnover dinosaur assemblages (mainly titanosaurids, rhabdodontids, and nodosaurids) were replaced by post-turnover assemblages, where lambeosaurine hadrosauroids featured predominantly (Vila et al, 2016). Lambeosaurines in Europe are represented by four taxa: Pararhabdodon isonensis Casanovas- Casadellas et al, 1993, Arenysaurus ardevoli Pereda-Superbiola et al, 2009, Blasisaurus canudoi Cruzado-Caballero et al, 2010 and Canardia garonnensis Prieto-Márquez et al, 2013, belonging to three different tribes (Prieto-Márquez et al, 2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

The oldest record of Lambeosaurinae in Europe: phylogenetic implications

Conti¹,

Prieto-Márquez²,

Garcia³

et al. 2018

Fossilia - Reports in Palaeontology

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Diversity and faunal changes in the latest Cretaceous dinosaur communities of southwestern Europe

Cited by 47 publications

References 57 publications

Evidence of Reproductive Stress in Titanosaurian Sauropods Triggered by an Increase in Ecological Competition

Evidence of Reproductive Stress in Titanosaurian Sauropods Triggered by an Increase in Ecological Competition

The last dinosaurs of Brazil: The Bauru Group and its implications for the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

The oldest record of Lambeosaurinae in Europe: phylogenetic implications

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