Ecomorphological diversifications of Mesozoic marine reptiles: the roles of ecological opportunity and extinction

Stubbs, Thomas L.; Benton, Michael J.

doi:10.1017/pab.2016.15

Cited by 78 publications

(143 citation statements)

References 83 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

131

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…; Close et al . ; Hopkins & Smith ; Stubbs & Benton ; Cantalapiedra et al . )? Do phylogenetic lineages of animals, especially of tetrapods, collectively show a directional tendency to increase in body mass through evolutionary time (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cope's rule and the adaptive landscape of dinosaur body size evolution

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The largest known dinosaurs weighed at least 20 million times as much as the smallest, indicating exceptional phenotypic divergence. Previous studies have focused on extreme giant sizes, tests of Cope's rule, and miniaturization on the line leading to birds. We use non-uniform macroevolutionary models based on Ornstein-Uhlenbeck and trend processes to unify these observations, asking: what patterns of evolutionary rates, directionality and constraint explain the diversification of dinosaur body mass? We find that dinosaur evolution is constrained by attraction to discrete body size optima that undergo rare, but abrupt, evolutionary shifts. This model explains both the rarity of multilineage directional trends, and the occurrence of abrupt directional excursions during the origins of groups such as tiny pygostylian birds and giant sauropods. Most expansion of trait space results from rare, constraint-breaking innovations in just a small number of lineages. These lineages shifted rapidly into novel regions of trait space, occasionally to small sizes, but most often to large or giant sizes. As with Cenozoic mammals, intermediate body sizes were typically attained only transiently by lineages on a trajectory from small to large size. This demonstrates that bimodality in the macroevolutionary adaptive landscape for land vertebrates has existed for more than 200 million years.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cope's rule and the adaptive landscape of dinosaur body size evolution

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Teleosaurids maintained higher evolutionary rates, indicating a rapid radiation of this more basal lineage during the Early Jurassic, filling empty ecospace in a less competitive environment after the end‐Triassic mass extinction, which caused a drastic loss of diversity and disparity of marine reptiles (Thorne et al . ; Stubbs & Benton ). In contrast the pace of functional evolution was slower in metrorhynchids, which nonetheless exhibited a greater diversity of diets and feeding modes than teleosaurids, as indicated by their wider range of craniodental morphologies and skull biomechanical variability (Pierce et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…). In the Middle and Late Jurassic, the greatest ecomorphological diversification of marine reptiles during thalattosuchian existence took place (Stubbs & Benton ). During this time ecological niches in the marine realm may have been saturated, leading to intense competitive pressure among thalattosuchians (Young et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Convergence and functional evolution of longirostry in crocodylomorphs

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During the Mesozoic, Crocodylomorpha had a much higher taxonomic and morphological diversity than today. Members of one particularly successful clade, Thalattosuchia, are well‐known for being longirostrine: having long, slender snouts. It has generally been assumed that Thalattosuchia owed their success in part to the evolution of longirostry, leading to a feeding ecology similar to that of the living Indian gharial, Gavialis. Here, we compare form and function of the skulls of the thalattosuchian Pelagosaurus and Gavialis using digital reconstructions of the skull musculoskeletal anatomy and finite element models to show that they had different jaw muscle arrangements and biomechanical behaviour. Additionally, the relevance of feeding‐related mandibular traits linked to longirostry in the radiation of crocodylomorph clades was investigated by conducting an evolutionary rates analysis under the variable rates model. We find that, even though Pelagosaurus and Gavialis share similar patterns of stress distribution in their skulls, the former had lower mechanical resistance. This suggests that compared to Gavialis, Pelagosaurus was unable to process large, mechanically less tractable prey, instead operating as a specialized piscivore that fed on softer and smaller prey. Secondly, innovation of feeding strategies was achieved by rate acceleration of functional characters of the mandible, a key mechanism for the diversification of certain clades like thalattosuchians and eusuchians. Different rates of functional evolution suggest divergent diversification dynamics between teleosaurids and metriorhynchids in the Jurassic.

show abstract

“…Data were scaled to equal variance and a mean of zero by subtracting the mean value for each feature and then dividing each feature by the standard deviation. We then created a distance matrix with this data, using the Gower metric, which is better suited for datasets mixing continuous and categorical variables (Gower ; Stubbs & Benton ), using the cluster v. 2.0.6 package in the R statistical environment (v. 3.4.1; R Core Team ). We submitted this distance matrix to a cluster dendrogram analysis using the stats package, using the Ward.D2 method.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased pliosaurid dental disparity across the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Pliosaurid marine reptiles played important roles in marine food chains from the Middle Jurassic to the middle Cretaceous, frequently as apex predators. The evolution of pliosaurids during the later parts of the Early Cretaceous has recently been illuminated by discoveries from Russia (Hauterivian) and Colombia (Barremian). However, knowledge of pliosaurids representing the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition (late Tithonian – Valanginian), is still largely incomplete, especially during the earliest Cretaceous. As such, the effect on pliosaurids of hypothesized faunal turnover during the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary interval is poorly understood. We report pliosaurid teeth from the upper Volgian (Tithonian, Upper Jurassic) of the Kheta river basin (Eastern Siberia, Russia), to the Berriasian and Valanginian (Lower Cretaceous) of the Volga region (European Russia). These assemblages have yielded a series of distinct tooth morphotypes, including the first reports of conical‐toothed pliosaurids from the latest Jurassic and earliest Cretaceous. This challenges the hypothesis that only one lineage of pliosaurids crossed the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary. It appears that conical‐toothed pliosaurids co‐existed with their trihedral‐toothed relatives for at least 25 million years during the latest Jurassic and earliest Cretaceous. In fact, our quantitative analyses indicate that pliosaurids reached their maximal dental disparity during this interval, showing little evidence of turnover associated with the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition. Instead, disparity decreased later in the Early Cretaceous, with the disappearance of trihedral‐toothed forms in the Barremian.

show abstract

Ecomorphological diversifications of Mesozoic marine reptiles: the roles of ecological opportunity and extinction

Cited by 78 publications

References 83 publications

Cope's rule and the adaptive landscape of dinosaur body size evolution

Cope's rule and the adaptive landscape of dinosaur body size evolution

Convergence and functional evolution of longirostry in crocodylomorphs

Increased pliosaurid dental disparity across the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About