Spatial scaling of beta diversity in the shallow-marine fossil record

Womack, Tom; Crampton, James S.; Hannah, Michael

doi:10.1017/pab.2020.44

Cited by 10 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…Diversity at the regional scale will be informative in determining specific drivers of, and biases in, the diversity signal (Crampton et al, 2003;Dunhill et al, 2012Dunhill et al, , 2013Dunhill et al, , 2014Close et al, 2020a), as will examining differences between diversity measures (e.g. alpha and beta diversity), which can also be spatially dependent (Womack, Crampton, & Hannah, 2021). Different spatial biases acting on the freshwater and marine records may also variably impact different diversity estimates, dependent on the attributes of the sampled regions (Lagomarcino & Miller, 2012).…”

Section: (B) Geographic and Spatial Biasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The early diversification of ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii): hypotheses, challenges and future prospects

Henderson¹,

Dunne²,

Fasey³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Actinopterygii are the most speciose living vertebrate clade, and study of fossil members during their Palaeozoic rise to dominance has a long history of descriptive work. Although research interest into Palaeozoic actinopterygians has increased in recent years, broader patterns of diversity and diversity dynamics remain critically understudied. Past studies have investigated macroevolutionary trends in Palaeozoic actinopterygians in a piecemeal fashion, variably using existing compendia of vertebrates or literature-based searches, and there is no comprehensive occurrence-based dataset of actinopterygians spanning the whole of the Palaeozoic. Past studies typically show low levels of diversity in the Devonian with a substantial rise in the early Carboniferous in the aftermath of the end-Devonian mass extinction. However there are unresolved patterns reported for the later Carboniferous and Permian. In large part, these conflicts span from a lack of publicly-available occurrence data: actinopterygians are majorly underrepresented in the Paleobiology Database (PBDB), for example, obscuring patterns of diversity through time. This is exacerbated by major taxonomic problems pervading the Palaeozoic actinopterygian record. Innumerable taxa are lumped into wide-ranging families and poorly-formulated genera, with a vast number of described species concentrated in several particularly problematic ‘waste-basket’ genera. This taxonomic confusion feeds into a limited understanding of phylogenetic relationships. There is also a heavy sampling bias towards Europe and North America, with other regions underrepresented despite yielding important occurrences. Scrutiny of the extent to which spatial biases influence the record is lacking, as is research on other forms of bias. Low richness in some time periods may be linked to geological biases, while the effect of taphonomic biases on Palaeozoic actinopterygians have not yet been investigated. Efforts are already underway to both redescribe poorly defined taxa and describe taxa from underrepresented regions, helping address taxonomic issues and accuracy of occurrence data. New methods of sampling standardisation utilising up-to-date occurrence databases will be critical in teasing apart biological changes in diversity from those resulting from bias. Lastly, continued phylogenetic work will enable the use of phylogenetic comparative methods to elucidate the origins of actinopterygian biogeography and subsequent patterns of radiation throughout their rise to dominate aquatic faunas.

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Section: (B) Geographic and Spatial Biasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The early diversification of ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii): hypotheses, challenges and future prospects

Henderson¹,

Dunne²,

Fasey³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…Moreover, regional and local assemblages are located in space, with definable geographic scale and (paleo)geographic locations. This information allows tests of the influence of regional environment on diversity, quantification of species-area relationships 38 or hierarchical beta diversity 40,108 and characterization of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in deep time 31 .…”

Section: Local Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, although studies of this type have yielded important hypotheses regarding the drivers of global biodiversity, spatially explicit studies may ultimately be required to test them further, potentially teasing apart the effects of linked Earth system drivers at nested spatial scales. These studies may include comparison of regional environmental variables with regional patterns of diversity or diversification rates within and across time periods 125 , and quantification of species-area relationships and beta diversity at varying spatial scales as an approach to quantifying provinciality 40 .…”

Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the most fundamental of these is that biodiversity is regulated by a dynamic balance between the rate of new species appearing in a region, either through immigration or speciation, and the extinction of species already present 4,18,35 . Paleobiology has also provided insights into how the biogeographic patterns seen today -including the latitudinal biodiversity gradient 31,36,37 and species-area relationships [38][39][40] -have varied in deep time. However, compared with the long-standing focus on interpreting variation in biodiversity through time at global scales 2,4,10,15,[41][42][43] , relatively few studies have investigated spatial or environmental variation in biodiversity or diversification rates using fossil evidence, in spite of its clear importance 14,21,38,[44][45][46][47][48][49] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Biodiversity across space and time in the fossil record

Benson

Butler

et al. 2021

Current Biology

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The fossil record is the primary source of information on how biodiversity has varied in deep time, providing unique insight on the long-term dynamics of diversification and their drivers. However, interpretations of fossil record diversity patterns have been much debated, with a traditional focus on global diversity through time. Problems arise because the fossil record is spatially and temporally patchy, so 'global' diversity estimates actually represent the summed diversity across a set of geographically and environmentally distinct regions that vary substantially in number and identity through time. Furthermore, a focus on global diversity lumps the signal of ecological drivers at local and regional scales with the signal of global-scale processes, including variation in the distribution of environments and in provincialism (the extent of subdivision into distinct biogeographic regions). These signals cannot be untangled by studying global diversity measures alone. These conceptual and empirical concerns necessitate a shift away from the study of 'biodiversity through time' and towards the study of 'biodiversity across time and space'. Spatially explicit investigations, including analyses of local-and regional-scale datasets, are central to achieving this and allow analysis of geographic scale, location and the environmental parameters directly experienced by organisms. So far, research in this area has revealed the stability of species richness variation among environments through time, and the potential climatic and Earth-system drivers of changing biodiversity. Ultimately, this research program promises to address key questions regarding the assembly of biodiversity, and the contributions of local-, regional-and global-scale processes to the diversification of life on Earth.

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“…To estimate spatial area, we generated an equal-area penta-hexagrid (side of 23 km) using the R package icosa (Kocsis 2020). We assigned each fossil collection to a grid-cell based on their paleocoordinates, following the protocol in Womack et al (2020b) The functional redundancy relationship for each time bin was generated by plotting species and functional richness recorded at equal summed MST lengths (see Fig. 7.6 and Fig.…”

Section: Estimating Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity dynamics of New Zealand's temperate shallow-marine ecosystems through the Cenozoic

Womack¹

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The fossil record provides the only evidence of how ecosystems have evolved over long timescales (multi-centennial to millennial) and how they have responded to changes in geological and environmental processes. Quantifying the impact of these geological and environmental processes on biodiversity is fundamental to understanding the paradigm of modern biodiversity loss and the ecological reverberations of anthropogenic climate change. Crucially, biodiversity is spatially dependent, and our perception of biodiversity may differ depending on the spatial scale of observation. As a result, understanding the diversity dynamics of the fossil record is both a question of time and space. Recent evidence suggests that studies at the regional spatial scale are optimal for understanding macroevolutionary and macroecological processes. Despite this, regional-scale studies using data from the fossil record are limited, particularly in the southern hemisphere. This thesis focuses on the temporal and spatial impacts of geological, climatic, and oceanographic processes on New Zealand’s regional shallow-marine molluscan ecosystems through the Cenozoic Era (the last 66 Myrs). New Zealand hosts remarkably complete Cenozoic stratigraphic and fossil records; the latter is regarded as the most complete shallow-marine fossil record in the southern hemisphere. As a result, this record provides an ideal case study to examine macroevolutionary and macroecological processes in the shallow marine realm at the regional scale. In addition, New Zealand’s modern and Cenozoic shallow-marine ecosystems are temperate. Temperate marine ecosystems are vastly understudied compared to their tropical counterparts in both modern ecosystems and the fossil record, and their response to climate change is poorly understood, particularly in the southern hemisphere. This thesis comprises four related research papers that form the main chapters. These are introduced by detailed background, data analysis, and methods chapters. The overarching aim of these papers is to: (1) quantify the impact of known confounding effects in the fossil record, particularly the Pull of the Recent; (2) evaluate the spatial dependence of biodiversity in the fossil record, particularly on temporal patterns of beta diversity; (3) understand the impact of climate change on taxonomic and functional biogeographic patterns of shallow-marine biodiversity; (4) employ the methods developed in the previous chapters to test the importance and role of several important geological and climatic factors on the spatial structuring New Zealand’s shallow-marine biodiversity. First, I find that the Pull of the Recent effects <2 % of genera and <4 % of species when considering taxa missing from the youngest ~5 Myrs of the New Zealand shallow-marine molluscan fossil record. Furthermore, the taxonomic composition of molluscs missing from the youngest part of the fossil record cannot easily be explained by effects related to shell mineralogical composition, body size, habitat, or taxonomic class. Lithification has minimal effect on the impact of the Pull of the Recent but does have a notable effect on apparent range-through diversity in the Pleistocene. Secondly, I show that beta diversity is spatially dependent at local to regional spatial scales and that uneven spatial sampling can influence recovered temporal trends in beta diversity. We argue that newly developed methods that allow for multisite beta diversity, partitioned into total dissimilarity, spatial turnover and nestedness, are the most suitable for elucidating patterns of beta diversity in the fossil record. Thirdly, I find that the interrelationship between two biogeographic patterns, the species-area relationship and functional diversity-area relationship, shows a strong, positive correlation to regional oceanic temperature, suggesting a long-lived and persistent association in the structuring of biodiversity, and temperature-dependence of functional redundancy, over the last ~45 Ma. Lastly, I find that oceanic warming seemingly has both a long-term positive effect on regional taxonomic diversity and rates of origination, but a negative correlation with regional functional diversity and its spatial distribution. This negative long-term relationship between regional functional diversity and oceanic temperature is likely driven by functional resilience to extinction during cool intervals rather than a negative response to warming per se. In summary, this thesis confirms the high quality of the New Zealand shallow-marine fossil record and identifies oceanic temperature as a major positive correlate of regional taxonomic diversity, origination, and functional redundancy. This correlation is not consistent across spatial scales, a reflection of other abiotic and biotic processes that are likely important. These findings are relevant to our understanding of macroevolutionary and macroecological processes, particularly how temperate shallow-marine ecosystems may respond to future warming. For New Zealand, this research suggests, as a baseline, that natural warming may increase equilibrium taxonomic diversity and functional redundancy in New Zealand. However, anthropogenic climate change is associated with increased loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction in the geological short term. This is likely to alter the future trajectory of New Zealand’s biodiversity anticipated from natural warming, which may have far-reaching impacts for the short- and long-term future of New Zealand’s unique and highly endemic marine fauna. Furthermore, the results discussed of this thesis also suggest the unfolding sixth mass extinction may be qualitatively different (i.e., higher levels of functional extinction) from previous mass extinction events and have correspondingly unforeseeable consequences. Lastly, and importantly, this thesis highlights the need for further study in shallow-marine temperate ecosystems, particularly at finer time scales, to better our understanding of diversity dynamics, and extinction risk.

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Spatial scaling of beta diversity in the shallow-marine fossil record

Cited by 10 publications

References 60 publications

The early diversification of ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii): hypotheses, challenges and future prospects

The early diversification of ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii): hypotheses, challenges and future prospects

Biodiversity across space and time in the fossil record

Diversity dynamics of New Zealand's temperate shallow-marine ecosystems through the Cenozoic

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