Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:07:22.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Skeletal Overgrowths Among Epizoans from the Silurian (Wenlockian) Waldron Shale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

W. David Liddell  and
Carlton E. Brett
W. David Liddell
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of New Orleans, Lake Front, New Orleans, Louisiana 70148
Carlton E. Brett
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Substrata for numerous epizoans in the Silurian Waldron Shale were provided by the toppled and overturned calyces of camerate crinoids. These were inhabited by a skeletonized fauna consisting of at least 25 species; including several bryozoans, tabulates, inarticulate brachiopods, worms, and echinoderms.

Many of the encrusting bryozoans exhibit skeletal overgrowths which appear to reflect competitive interactions for space. Coexistence of certain of the bryozoans involved in such interactions is suggested by skeletal features such as inflated growth forms and upturned margins at junctions between colonies (both representing attempts to avoid being overgrown). In addition, the occurrence of overgrowth reversals within individual encounters indicates contemporaneity of that pair. Species may be ranked according to their relative overgrowth success; however, this ranking is far from rigid as lower ranked species may on occasion overgrow more highly ranked species. Such nontransitive patterns appear similar to those described from Recent cryptic bryozoan faunas.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , Winter 1982 , pp. 67 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Ager, D. V. 1961. The epifauna of a Devonian spiriferid. Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 117:1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boardman, R. S. and McKinney, F. K. 1976. Skeletal architecture and preserved organs of four-sided zooids in convergent genera of Paleozoic Trepostomata (Bryozoa). J. Paleontol. 50:25–78.Google Scholar
Bowsher, A. L. 1955. Origin and adaptation of platyceratid gastropods. Univ. Kansas Paleontol. Contrib. Mollusca Art. 5:1–11.Google Scholar
Brett, C. E. and Liddell, W. D. 1978. Preservation and paleoecology of a Middle Ordovician hardground community. Paleobiology. 4:329–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryan, P. G. 1973. Growth rate, toxicity, and distribution of the encrusting sponge Terpios sp. (Hadromerida:Suberitidae) in Guam, Marianas Islands. Micronesia. 9:237–242.Google Scholar
Buss, L. W. 1976. Better living through chemistry: the relationship between competitive networks and allelochemical interactions. Pp. 315–328. In: Harrison, F. W., ed. Aspects of Sponge Biology. Academic Press; New York.Google Scholar
Buss, L. W. 1979. Bryozoan overgrowth interactions—the interdependence of competition for space and food. Nature. 281:475–477.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buss, L. W. 1980. Competitive intransitivity and size-frequency distributions of interacting populations. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 77:5355–5359.Google Scholar
Buss, L. W. 1981. Group living, competition, and the evolution of cooperation in a sessile invertebrate. Science. 213:1012–1014.Google Scholar
Buss, L. W. and Jackson, J. B. C. 1979. Competitive networks: nontransitive competitive relationships in cryptic coral reef environments. Am. Nat. 113:223–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, J. M. 1908. The beginnings of dependent life. New York State Mus. Bull. 121:146–169.Google Scholar
Clarke, J. M. 1921. Organic dependence and disease: their origin and significance. New York State Mus. Bull. 227–222:1–113.Google Scholar
Connell, J. H. 1961a. The influence of interspecific competition and other factors on the distributions of the barnacle Chthamalus stellatus. Ecology. 42:710–723.Google Scholar
Connell, J. H. 1961b. Effects of competition, predation by Thais lapillus and other factors on natural populations of the barnacle Balanus balanoides. Ecol. Monogr. 31:61–104.Google Scholar
Connell, J. H. 1975. Some mechanisms producing structure in natural communities: a model and evidence from field experiments. Pp. 460–490. In: Cody, M. and Diamond, J., eds. Ecology and Evolution of Natural Communities. Harvard Univ. Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Dayton, P. K. 1971. Competition, disturbance, and community organization: the provision and subsequent utilization of space in a rocky intertidal community. Ecol. Monogr. 41:351–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dayton, P. K., Rabilliard, G. A., Paine, R. T., and Dayton, L. B. 1974. Biological accommodation in the benthic community at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Ecol. Monogr. 44:105–128.Google Scholar
Fritz, M. 1976. A microbioherm. Pp. 18–25. In: Churcher, C. F., ed. Essays in Palaeontology in Honour of Loris Shano Russel. R. Ont. Mus. Life Sci. Misc. Pubis.Google Scholar
Gault, H. W. and McKinney, F. K. 1980. Middle Ordovician sponge-bryozoan bioherms, Birmingham, Alabama. South Eastern Geol. Soc. Am. Mtg. Abstr. with Prog. 12:177.Google Scholar
Hurst, J. M. 1974. Selective epizoan encrustation of some Silurian brachiopods from Gotland. Palaeontology. 17:423–429.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. B. C. 1977. Competition on marine hard substrata: the adaptive significance of solitary and colonial strategies. Am. Nat. 111:743–767.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, J. B. C. 1979. Overgrowth competition between encrusting cheilostome ectoprocts in a Jamaican cryptic reef environment. J. Anim. Ecol. 48:805–823.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. B. C. and Buss, L. 1975. Allelopathy and spatial competition among coral reef invertebrates. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 72:5160–5163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karlson, R. 1978. Predation and space utilization patterns in a marine epifaunal community. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 31:225–239.Google Scholar
Knight-Jones, E. W. 1951. Gregariousness and some other aspects of the settling behavior of Spirorbis. J. Mar. Biol. Assoc. U.K. 30:201–222.Google Scholar
Lang, J. C. 1973. Interspecific aggression by scleractinian corals. 2. Why the race is not only to the swift. Bull. Mar. Sci. 23:260–279.Google Scholar
Liddell, W. D. and Brett, C. E. 1979. Calyces of Eucalyptocrinites spp. as habitat islands in the Silurian (Wenlockian) Waldron Shale. North Central Geol. Soc. Am. Mtg., Abstr. with Prog. 11:234.Google Scholar
Meyer, F. M. 1978. Spacial competition in Devonian bioherms of Michigan. North Central Geol. Soc. Am. Mtg., Abstr. with Prog. 10:278.Google Scholar
Ohlhorst, S. L. 1980. Jamaican Coral Reefs: Important Biological and Physical Parameters. Dissertation, Yale Univ.; New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Osman, R. W. 1977. The establishment and development of a marine epifaunal community. Ecol. Monogr. 47:37–63.Google Scholar
Pachut, J. F. and Anstey, R. L. 1979. A developmental explanation of stability-diversity-variation hypotheses: morphogenetic regulation in Ordovician bryozoan colonies. Paleobiology. 5:168–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paine, R. T. 1966. Food web complexity and species diversity. Am. Nat. 100:65–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paine, R. T. 1974. Intertidal community structure. Experimental studies on the relationship between a dominant competitor and its principal predator. Oecologia. 15:93–120.Google Scholar
Palmer, T. J. and Palmer, C. D. 1977. Faunal distribution and colonization strategy in a Middle Ordovician hardground community. Lethaia. 10:179–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitrat, C.W. and Rogers, F. S. 1978. Spinocyrtia and its epibionts in the Traverse Group (Devonian) of Michigan. J. Paleontol. 52:1315–1324.Google Scholar
Porter, J. W. 1974. Community structure of coral reefs on opposite sides of the Isthmus of Panama. Science. 186:543–545.Google Scholar
Richards, R. P. 1974. Ecology of the Cornulitidae. J. Paleontol. 48:514–523.Google Scholar
Seilacher, A. 1960. Epizoans as a key to ammonoid ecology. J. Paleontol. 34:189–193.Google Scholar
Stebbing, A. R. D. 1973. Observations on colony overgrowth and spatial competition. Pp. 173–183. In: Larwood, G. P., ed. Living and Fossil Bryozoa. Academic Press; London.Google Scholar
Sutherland, J. P. and Karlson, R. H. 1977. Development and stability of the fouling community at Beaufort, North Carolina. Ecol. Monogr. 47:425–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, P. D. 1979. Palaeoecology of the encrusting epifauna of some British Jurassic bivalves. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 28:241–262.Google Scholar
Thayer, C. W. 1974. Substrate specificity of Devonian epizoa. J. Paleontol. 48:881–895.Google Scholar
Thomsen, E. 1977. Relations between encrusting bryozoans and substrate: an example from the Danian of Denmark. Bull. Geol. Soc. Denmark. 26(Pts. 1–2):133–145.Google Scholar