Phytoplankton dynamics across the Ordovician/Silurian boundary at low palaeolatitudes: Correlations with carbon isotopic and glacial events

Delabroye, Aurélien; Munnecke, Axel; Vecoli, Marco; Copper, Paul; Tribovillard, Nicolas; Joachimski, Michael M.; Desrochers, André; Servais, Thomas

doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2011.09.011

Cited by 47 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…The LOME marks the largest depletion in species diversity (77% loss) in the history of the clade and the complete, or near-complete, removal of many long-standing families, genera, and species, including the Diplograptidae, Climacograptidae, and Dicranograptidae (27,28). It was associated with major positive excursions in the carbon isotope (δ 13 C carb ) ratio (25,29,42), global continental glaciation (43,44), changes in oceanic circulation, water mass properties, and microphytoplankton populations (42,45), and the deep-water graptoloid biotope was severely degraded or destroyed (13,29). The main surviving group after the LOME, the cold-adapted normalograptids (46), diversified rapidly in the early Silurian, driving a rapid recovery in species richness of the clade.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greenhouse−icehouse transition in the Late Ordovician marks a step change in extinction regime in the marine plankton

Crampton

Cooper

Sadler

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Two distinct regimes of extinction dynamic are present in the major marine zooplankton group, the graptolites, during the Ordovician and Silurian periods (486−418 Ma). In conditions of "background" extinction, which dominated in the Ordovician, taxonomic evolutionary rates were relatively low and the probability of extinction was highest among newly evolved species ("background extinction mode"). A sharp change in extinction regime in the Late Ordovician marked the onset of repeated severe spikes in the extinction rate curve; evolutionary turnover increased greatly in the Silurian, and the extinction mode changed to include extinction that was independent of species age ("high-extinction mode"). This change coincides with a change in global climate, from greenhouse to icehouse conditions. During the most extreme episode of extinction, the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction, old species were selectively removed ("mass extinction mode"). Our analysis indicates that selective regimes in the Paleozoic ocean plankton switched rapidly (generally in <0.5 My) from one mode to another in response to environmental change, even when restoration of the full ecosystem was much slower (several million years). The patterns observed are not a simple consequence of geographic range effects or of taxonomic changes from Ordovician to Silurian. Our results suggest that the dominant primary controls on extinction throughout the lifespan of this clade were abiotic (environmental), probably mediated by the microphytoplankton.T he importance of the marine plankton in both the carbon cycle and in the food web that supports the diversity of marine life is undisputed. However, the evolutionary dynamics of planktic species and the factors controlling their diversity and evolutionary turnover are still poorly known (1, 2). This is particularly so for the Paleozoic, where problems of preservation and sampling bias, and poor time resolution, have precluded detailed analysis. How does the marine plankton respond to environmental perturbations arising from climate change over geological time? How does background extinction differ from episodic and mass extinction in the pelagic realm? Is the risk of plankton species extinction dependent on the amount of time since the species originated (3)? These questions have important implications for macroevolutionary process, stability of marine ecosystems, and modern biodiversity conservation (3-5). Here, using a new global data set of unparalleled temporal resolution, we attempt to answer these questions.The graptoloid clade (order Graptoloidea) constituted the main component of the early Paleozoic macrozooplankton from the beginning of the Ordovician to the Early Devonian (6). Graptoloids were colonial filter-feeding protochordates, generally ranging from a few millimeteres up to ∼200 mm in maximum dimension, which lived suspended in the water column in a range of depth zones. They have been used extensively for correlation and zonation (7-10), and the stratigraphic distributions of species are well docum...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greenhouse−icehouse transition in the Late Ordovician marks a step change in extinction regime in the marine plankton

Crampton

Cooper

Sadler

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Phytoplankton dynamics across the Ordovician-Silurian boundary and from the early Silurian at low palaeolatitudes, with reference to acritarch data, have also been discussed (Miller and Eames, 1982;Hill and Dorning, 1984;Johnson, 1985;Martin, 1988;Masiak et al, 2003;Delabroye et al, 2011). For the Rhuddanian, the closest similarity is with western New York State (Miller and Eames, 1982).…”

Section: Age and Significancementioning

confidence: 98%

Late Ordovician to early Silurian acritarchs from the Qusaiba-1 shallow core hole, central Saudi Arabia

Hérissé

Molyneux

Miller³

2015

Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology

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“…The phytoplankton (acritarchs and chlorophytes) of the Quebrada Ancha section analysed herein shows significant similarities with coeval assemblages, mainly from Baltica, Avalonia and Laurentia (e.g., and references therein; Gelsthorpe, 2004;Molyneux et al, 2008), despite being separated by the Rheic Ocean, corresponding to different palaeolatitudes. The wide distribution of the species has been mainly attributed to the maximum post-glacial flooding and the new water masses exchanged (Delabroye et al, 2011a). Another possibility would be that the Rheic Ocean did not constitute an impassable barrier for marine palynomorphs or that the continents were much closer to each other than suggested by most of the palaeogeographic reconstructions, as already proposed for the late Silurian and Lower Devonian and references therein).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…This provincialism has been interpreted mainly as a result of sea level changes of the Rheic Ocean during pre-glacial, glacial and post-glacial events (Delabroye et al, 2011a). However, in the Llandovery and Wenlock, local environmental factors such as the distance to the shoreline, could have had more influence on acritarch distribution than the oceanic circulation and palaeogeographical location (Le Hérissé and Gourvennec, 1995;Delabroye et al, 2011a;Molyneux et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Palynology and palynofacies analysis of a Silurian (Llandovery–Wenlock) marine succession from the Precordillera of western Argentina: Palaeobiogeographical and palaeoenvironmental significance

Muro

Rubinstein

Martínez

2016

Marine Micropaleontology

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Phytoplankton dynamics across the Ordovician/Silurian boundary at low palaeolatitudes: Correlations with carbon isotopic and glacial events

Cited by 47 publications

References 77 publications

Greenhouse−icehouse transition in the Late Ordovician marks a step change in extinction regime in the marine plankton

Greenhouse−icehouse transition in the Late Ordovician marks a step change in extinction regime in the marine plankton

Late Ordovician to early Silurian acritarchs from the Qusaiba-1 shallow core hole, central Saudi Arabia

Palynology and palynofacies analysis of a Silurian (Llandovery–Wenlock) marine succession from the Precordillera of western Argentina: Palaeobiogeographical and palaeoenvironmental significance

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