Morphospace occupation in thalattosuchian crocodylomorphs: skull shape variation, species delineation and temporal patterns

Pierce, Stephanie E.; Angielczyk, Kenneth D.; Rayfield, Emily J.

doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2009.00904.x

Cited by 77 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…The combined role of ecology, physiology or behaviour may therefore explain why marine crocodylomorph diversity does not show good correlation with continental flooding. Pierce et al 16 suggested that thalattosuchian extinction in the Early Cretaceous was driven by sea-level fall. The present results show that marine crocodylomorph diversity is at least partly affected by sea-level variations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea surface temperature contributes to marine crocodylomorph evolution

et al. 2014

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During the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, four distinct crocodylomorph lineages colonized the marine environment. They were conspicuously absent from high latitudes, which in the Mesozoic were occupied by warm-blooded ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Despite a relatively well-constrained stratigraphic distribution, the varying diversities of marine crocodylomorphs are poorly understood, because their extinctions neither coincided with any major biological crises nor with the advent of potential competitors. Here we test the potential link between their evolutionary history in terms of taxic diversity and two abiotic factors, sea level variations and sea surface temperatures (SST). Excluding Metriorhynchoidea, which may have had a peculiar ecology, significant correlations obtained between generic diversity and estimated Tethyan SST suggest that water temperature was a driver of marine crocodylomorph diversity. Being most probably ectothermic reptiles, these lineages colonized the marine realm and diversified during warm periods, then declined or became extinct during cold intervals.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea surface temperature contributes to marine crocodylomorph evolution

et al. 2014

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“…They are the only archosaurian reptile group to have evolved a fully pelagic lifestyle, and underwent a dramatic diversification between their Middle Jurassic origination from terrestrial ancestors until their sudden extinction during the Early Cretaceous [1]. The diversification of metriorhynchids during their short evolutionary history involved increasing morphological, functional and ecological diversity, including increasing variation in craniofacial form [1][2][3], dental morphology [4], body size [5] and cranial mechanical behaviour to applied loads [1,3]. Remarkably, several species of metriorhynchids often coexisted in the same marine ecosystems, and recent studies have suggested that niche partitioning, maintained via morphological and functional differentiation in the features described above, enabled high biodiversity [4,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Answering these questions depends on a firm understanding of the relationship between form and function, which requires an integrated toolkit of morphological, functional and phylogenetic data. This repertoire is rarely available for extinct vertebrate clades, but recent work on metriorhynchid cranial morphometrics [1,2], skull biomechanics [1,3], and phylogeny [5] provides an unprecedented reservoir of data for studying these unique crocodylomorphs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Craniofacial form and function in Metriorhynchidae (Crocodylomorpha: Thalattosuchia): modelling phenotypic evolution with maximum-likelihood methods

2011

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Metriorhynchid crocodylomorphs were the only group of archosaurs to fully adapt to a pelagic lifestyle. During the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, this group diversified into a variety of ecological and morphological types, from large super-predators with a broad short snout and serrated teeth to specialized piscivores/teuthophages with an elongate tubular snout and uncarinated teeth. Here, we use an integrated repertoire of geometric morphometric (form), biomechanical finite-element analysis (FEA; function) and phylogenetic data to examine the nature of craniofacial evolution in this clade. FEA stress values significantly correlate with morphometric values representing skull length and breadth, indicating that form and function are associated. Maximum-likelihood methods, which assess which of several models of evolution best explain the distribution of form and function data on a phylogenetic tree, show that the two major metriorhynchid subclades underwent different evolutionary modes. In geosaurines, both form and function are best explained as evolving under 'random' Brownian motion, whereas in metriorhynchines, the form metrics are best explained as evolving under stasis and the function metric as undergoing a directional change (towards most efficient low-stress piscivory). This suggests that the two subclades were under different selection pressures, and that metriorhynchines with similar skull shape were driven to become functionally divergent.

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“…During this period, thalattosuchians achieved a broad ecological range, with a variety of feeding modes, craniofacial forms, dental morphologies, functional biomechanical behaviours, and a wide spectrum of body sizes (Pierce, Angielczyk & Rayfield, 2009;Andrade et al, 2010;Young et al, 2010Young et al, , 2011. Geosaurines, a subgroup of metriorhynchoids, possessed a suite of dental characteristics indicating a macrophagous feeding strategy, and it is likely that they were the apex or second-tier predators of Late Jurassic seas Young et al, 2010Young et al, , 2011.…”

Section: (C) Crocodylomorphsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biotic and environmental dynamics through theLateJurassic–EarlyCretaceous transition: evidence for protracted faunal and ecological turnover

et al. 2016

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The Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous interval represents a time of environmental upheaval and cataclysmic events, combined with disruptions to terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Historically, the Jurassic/Cretaceous (J/K) boundary was classified as one of eight mass extinctions. However, more recent research has largely overturned this view, revealing a much more complex pattern of biotic and abiotic dynamics than has previously been appreciated. Here, we present a synthesis of our current knowledge of Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous events, focusing particularly on events closest to the J/K boundary. We find evidence for a combination of short-term catastrophic events, large-scale tectonic processes and environmental perturbations, and major clade interactions that led to a seemingly dramatic faunal and ecological turnover in both the marine and terrestrial realms. This is coupled with a great reduction in global biodiversity which might in part be explained by poor sampling. Very few groups appear to have been entirely resilient to this J/K boundary 'event', which hints at a 'cascade model' of ecosystem changes driving faunal dynamics. Within terrestrial ecosystems, larger, more-specialised organisms, such as saurischian dinosaurs, appear to have suffered the most. Medium-sized tetanuran theropods declined, and were replaced by larger-bodied groups, and basal eusauropods were replaced by neosauropod faunas. The ascent of paravian theropods is emphasised by escalated competition with contemporary pterosaur groups, culminating in the explosive radiation of birds, although the timing of this is obfuscated by biases in sampling. Smaller, more ecologically diverse terrestrial non-archosaurs, such as lissamphibians and mammaliaforms, were comparatively resilient to extinctions, instead documenting the origination of many extant groups around the J/K boundary. In the marine realm, extinctions were focused on low-latitude, shallow marine shelf-dwelling faunas, corresponding to a significant eustatic sea-level fall in the latest Jurassic. More mobile and ecologically plastic marine groups, such as ichthyosaurs, survived the boundary relatively unscathed. High rates of extinction and turnover in other macropredaceous marine groups, including plesiosaurs, are accompanied by the origin of most major lineages of extant sharks. Groups which occupied both marine and terrestrial ecosystems, including crocodylomorphs, document a selective extinction in shallow marine forms, whereas turtles appear to have diversified. These patterns suggest that different extinction selectivity and ecological processes were operating between marine and terrestrial ecosystems, which were ultimately important in determining the fates of many key groups, as well as the origins of many major extant lineages. We identify a series of potential abiotic candidates for driving these patterns, including multiple bolide impacts, several episodes of flood basalt eruptions, dramatic climate change, and major disruptions to oceanic systems. The J/K t...

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Morphospace occupation in thalattosuchian crocodylomorphs: skull shape variation, species delineation and temporal patterns

Cited by 77 publications

References 66 publications

Sea surface temperature contributes to marine crocodylomorph evolution

Sea surface temperature contributes to marine crocodylomorph evolution

Craniofacial form and function in Metriorhynchidae (Crocodylomorpha: Thalattosuchia): modelling phenotypic evolution with maximum-likelihood methods

Biotic and environmental dynamics through theLateJurassic–EarlyCretaceous transition: evidence for protracted faunal and ecological turnover

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