Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T17:41:41.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does morphological variation buffer against extinction? A test using veneroid bivalves from the Plio-Pleistocene of Florida

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Sarah E. Kolbe ,
Rowan Lockwood  and
Gene Hunt
Sarah E. Kolbe
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0013. E-mail: [email protected]
Rowan Lockwood
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, College of William and Mary, Post Office Box 8795, Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
Gene Hunt
Affiliation:
Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, MRC 121, Post Office Box 37012, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although morphological variation is known to influence the evolutionary fates of species, the relationship between morphological variation and survivorship in the face of extinction-inducing perturbations is poorly understood. Here, we investigate this relationship for veneroid bivalves in association with the Plio-Pleistocene extinction in Florida. Fourteen pairs of related species were selected for analysis, with each pair including one species that survived the Plio-Pleistocene extinction and another that became extinct during the interval. Morphological landmark data were acquired for more than 1500 museum specimens, representing 19 localities that encompass four well-known Plio-Pleistocene units in the study region. Procrustes superimposition was applied to each sample, and overall multivariate variation was calculated as the mean squared partial Procrustes distance between specimens and their mean form. Morphological variation was calculated at three geographic scales for each species, and differences in variation between survivors and victims were examined within each species pair. Results indicate that species surviving the Plio-Pleistocene extinction were significantly more variable morphologically than victims. Greater morphological variation may promote survivorship by directly enhancing species adaptations to changing conditions or by permitting the occupation of a larger geographic range. Alternatively, high morphological variation and survivorship may both be mediated by a third variable, such as large geographic range.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , Summer 2011 , pp. 355 - 368
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

Akers, W. H. 1972. Planktonic foraminifera and biostratigraphy of some Neogene formations, northern Florida and Atlantic Coastal Plain. Tulane Studies in Geology and Paleontology 9:1–139.Google Scholar
Akers, W. H. and Koeppel, P. E. 1973. Age of some Neogene formations, Atlantic Coastal Plains, United States and Mexico. Pp. 80–93 in Smith, L. A. and Hardenbol, J., eds. Proceedings of symposium on calcareous nannofossils. Gulf Coast Section, Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, Houston.Google Scholar
Alisauskus, R. T. 1998. Winter range expansion and relationships between landscape and morphometrics of midcontinent Lesser Snow Geese. Auk 115:851–862.Google Scholar
Allmon, W. D. 1992. Whence southern Florida's Plio-Pleistocene shell beds? In Scott, T. M. and Allmon, W. D., eds. The Plio-Pleistocene stratigraphy of southern Florida. Florida Geological Survey Special Publication 36:1–20.Google Scholar
Allmon, W. D. 1993a. Age, environment, and mode of deposition of the densely fossiliferous Pinecrest Sand (Pliocene of Florida): implications for the role of biological productivity in shell bed formation. Palaios 8:183–201.Google Scholar
Allmon, W. D. 1993b. Do Florida's Plio-Pleistocene shell beds have large-scale paleobiological significance? In Zullo, V., Harris, W., Scott, T., and Portell, R., eds. The Neogene of Florida and adjacent regions. Proceedings of the third Bald Head Island conference on coastal plain geology. Florida Geological Survey Special Publication 37:67–72.Google Scholar
Allmon, W. D. 2001. Nutrients, temperature, disturbance, and evolution: a model for the late Cenozoic marine record of the western Atlantic. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 166:9–26.Google Scholar
Allmon, W. D., Emslie, S. D., Jones, D. S., and Morgan, G. S. 1996. Late Neogene oceanographic change along Florida's west coast: evidence and mechanisms. Journal of Geology 104:143–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, F. M. 1929. Marine Miocene and related deposits of North Colombia. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 18:73–213.Google Scholar
Anderson, L. C. 2001. Temporal and geographic size trends in Neogene Corbulidae (Bivalvia) of tropical America: using environmental sensitivity to decipher causes of morphological trends. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 166:101–120.Google Scholar
Berggren, W. A., Kent, D. V., Swisher, C. C. III, and Aubry, M.-P. 1995. A revised Cenozoic geochronology and chronostratigraphy. Society for Sedimentary Geology Special Publication 54:129–364.Google Scholar
Bolnick, D. I., Svanback, R., Araujo, M. S., and Persson, L. 2007. Comparative support for the niche variation hypothesis that more generalized populations also are more heterogeneous. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104:10075–10079.Google Scholar
Budd, A. F., Johnson, K. G., and Stemann, T. A. 1996. Plio-Pleistocene turnover and extinctions in the Caribbean reef-coral fauna. Pp. 168–204 in Jackson, et al. 1996a.Google Scholar
Chapman, R. E. 1990. Conventional Procrustes approaches. In Rohlf, F. J. and Bookstein, F. L., eds. Proceedings of the Michigan morphometrics workshop. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Special Publication 2:251–267.Google Scholar
Cronin, T. M. and Dowsett, H. J. 1996. Biotic and oceanographic response to the Pliocene closing of the Central American Isthmus. Pp. 76–104 in Jackson, et al. 1996a.Google Scholar
Doran, N. A., Arnold, A. J., Parker, W. C., and Huffer, F. W. 2006. Is extinction age dependent? Palaios 21:571–579.Google Scholar
Dryden, I. 2006. Shapes: statistical shape analysis. R package, Version 1.1–1. http://www.maths.nott.ac.uk/∼ild/shapes Google Scholar
Dryden, I. L., and Mardia, K. V. 1998. Statistical shape analysis. Wiley, Chichester, U.K. Google Scholar
DuBar, J. R., Jules, R., Ewing, T. E., Lundelius, E. L. Jr., Otvos, E. G., and Winker, C. D. 1991. Quaternary geology of the Gulf of Mexico coastal plain. Pp. 583–610 in Morrison, R. B., ed. Quaternary nonglacial geology; conterminous United States. Geology of North America, Vol. K–2. Geological Society of America, Boulder.Google Scholar
Falconer, D. S., and Mackay, T. F. C. 1996. Introduction to quantitative genetics. Addison-Wesley, Essex, U.K. Google Scholar
Felsenstein, J. 1985. Phylogenies and the comparative method. American Naturalist 125:1–15.Google Scholar
Findlay, J. S., and Black, H. 1983. Morphological and dietary structuring of a Zambian insectivorous bat community. Ecology 64:625–630.Google Scholar
Finnegan, S., Payne, J. L., and Wang, S. C. 2008. The Red Queen revisited: reevaluating the age selectivity of Phanerozoic marine genus extinctions. Paleobiology 34:318–341.Google Scholar
Foote, M. 1993. Contributions of individual taxa to overall morphological disparity. Paleobiology 19:403–419.Google Scholar
Hansen, T. A., Kelley, P. H., Melland, V. D., and Graham, S. E. 1999. Effect of climate-related mass extinctions on escalation in molluscs. Geology 27:1139–1142.Google Scholar
Hopkins, M. J., and Webster, M. 2009. Ontogeny and geographic variation of a new species of the corynexochine trilobite Zacanthopsis (Dyeran, Cambrian). Journal of Paleontology 83:524–547.Google Scholar
Hunt, G. 2007. Evolutionary divergence in directions of high phenotypic variance in the ostracode genus Poseidonamicus . Evolution 61:1560–1576.Google Scholar
Huddlestun, P. F. 1988. A revision of the lithostratigraphic units of the coastal plain of Georgia, the Miocene through the Holocene. Georgia Geologic Survey Bulletin 104:1–154.Google Scholar
International Commission on Stratigraphy. 2009. International stratigraphic chart, www.stratigraphy.org.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D. 1986. Background and mass extinctions: the alternation of macroevolutionary regimes. Science 231:129–133.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D. 2008. Extinction and the spatial dynamics of biodiversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105:11528–11535.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D., and Hunt, G. 2006. Larval ecology, geographic range, and species survivorship in Cretaceous mollusks: organismic versus species-level explanations. American Naturalist 168:556–564.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. B. C., Jung, P., Coates, A. G., and Collins, L. S. 1993. Diversity and extinction of tropical American mollusks and the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama. Science 260:1624–1626.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. B. C., Budd, A. F., and Coates, A. G., eds. 1996a. Evolution and environment in tropical America. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. B. C., Jung, P., and Fortunato, H. 1996b. Paciphilia revisited: transisthmian evolution of the Strombina group (Gastropoda: Columbellidae). Pp. 234–270 in Jackson, et al. 1996a.Google Scholar
Jones, D. S., MacFadden, B. J., Webb, S. D., Mueller, P. A., Hodell, D. A., and Cronin, T. M. 1991. The integrated geochronology of a classic Pliocene fossil site in Florida: linking marine and terrestrial biochronologies. Journal of Geology 99:637–648.Google Scholar
Kammer, T. W., Baumiller, T. K., and Ausich, W. I. 1997. Species longevity as a function of niche breadth: evidence from fossil crinoids. Geology 25:219–222.Google Scholar
Lande, R. 1976. Natural selection and random genetic drift in phenotypic evolution. Evolution 30:314–334.Google Scholar
Lande, R. 2009. Adaptation to an extraordinary environment by evolution of phenotypic plasticity and genetic assimilation. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22:1435–1446.Google Scholar
Lande, R., and Shannon, S. 1996. The role of genetic variation in adaptation and population persistence in a changing environment. Evolution 50:434–437.Google Scholar
Liow, L. H. 2007. Does versatility as measured by geographic range, bathymetric range, and morphological variability contribute to taxon longevity? Global Ecology and Biogeography 16:117–128.Google Scholar
Lloyd, E. A., and Gould, S. J. 1993. Species selection on variability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 90:595–599.Google Scholar
Lyons, W. G. 1991. Post-Miocene species of Latirus Montfort, 1810 (Mollusca: Fasciolariidae) of southern Florida, with a review of regional marine biostratigraphy. Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History 35:131–208.Google Scholar
Lockwood, R. 2004. The K/T event and infaunality: morphological and ecological patterns of extinction and recovery in veneroid bivalves. Paleobiology 30:507–521.Google Scholar
Maddison, W. P. 2000. Testing character correlation using pairwise comparisons on a phylogeny. Journal of Theoretical Biology 202:195–204.Google Scholar
Mansfield, W. C. 1932. Miocene pelecypods of the Choctawatchee Formation of Florida. Florida State Geological Survey Bulletin 8:1–240.Google Scholar
McCartan, L., Weedman, S. D., Wingard, G. L., Edwards, L. E., Sugarman, P. J., Feigenson, M. D., Buursink, M. L., and Libarkin, J. C. 1995. Age and diagenesis of the upper Floridan aquifer and the intermediate aquifer system in southwestern Florida. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 2122:1–26.Google Scholar
McGhee, G. R. 1995. Geometry of evolution in the biconvex Brachiopoda: morphological effects of mass extinction. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie 197:357–382.Google Scholar
Missimer, T. M. 2001a. Late Neogene geology of northwestern Lee County, Florida. In Missimer, T. M. and Scott, T. M., eds. Geology and hydrology of Lee County, Florida (Durward H. Boggess Memorial Symposium). Florida Geological Survey Special Publication 49:21–34.Google Scholar
Missimer, T. M. 2001b. Late Paleogene and Neogene chronostratigraphy of Lee County, Florida. In Missimer, T. M. and Scott, T. M., eds. Geology and hydrology of Lee County, Florida (Durward H. Boggess Memorial Symposium). Florida Geological Survey Special Publication 49:67–90.Google Scholar
Ogg, J. G., Ogg, G., and Gradstein, F. M. 2008. The concise geologic time scale. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Olsson, A. A. 1961. Mollusks of the tropical eastern Pacific, particularly from the southern half of the Panamic-Pacific Faunal Province (Panama to Peru), Part I. Panamic Pacific Pelecypoda. Paleontological Research Institution, Ithaca, N.Y. Google Scholar
Otvos, E. G. 1988. Pliocene age of coastal units, northeastern Gulf of Mexico. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 72:1119–1120.Google Scholar
Otvos, E. G. 2005. Numerical chronology of Pleistocene coastal plain and valley development; extensive aggradation during glacial low sea-levels. Quaternary International 135:91–113.Google Scholar
Payne, J. L., and Finnegan, S. 2007. The effect of geographic range on extinction risk during background and mass extinction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104:10506–10511.Google Scholar
Petuch, E. J. 1982a. Geographical heterochrony: contemporaneous coexistence of Neogene and Recent molluscan faunas in the Americas. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 37:277–312.Google Scholar
Petuch, E. J. 1982b. Notes on the molluscan paleoecology of the Pinecrest Beds at Sarasota, Florida with a description of Pyruella, a stratigraphically important new genus (Gastropoda: Melongenidae). Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 134:12–30.Google Scholar
Purvis, A. 2008. Phylogenetic approaches to the study of extinction. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 39:301.Google Scholar
R Core Development Team. 2006. R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna. http://www.R-project.org.Google Scholar
Renaud, S., Auffray, J.-C., and Michaux, J. 2006. Conserved phenotypic variation patterns, evolution along the lines of least resistance, and departure due to selection in fossil rodents. Evolution 60:1701–1717.Google Scholar
Richards, H. G., and Harbison, A. 1942. Miocene invertebrate fauna of New Jersey. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 94:167–250.Google Scholar
Rohlf, F. J. 1990. Rotational fit (Procrustes) methods. In Rohlf, F. J. and Bookstein, F. L., eds. Proceedings of the Michigan morphometrics workshop. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Special Publication 2:227–236.Google Scholar
Rohlf, F. J. 2006. tpsDIG, version 2.05, available at http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/morph.Google Scholar
Roopnarine, P. D. 1996. Systematics, biogeography, and extinction of chionine bivalves (Bivalvia: Veneridae) in tropical America: early Oligocene–Recent. Malacologia 38:103–142.Google Scholar
Rupert, F. R. 1990. Geology of Gadsden County, Florida. Florida Geological Survey Bulletin 62:1–61.Google Scholar
Schluter, D. 1996. Adaptive radiation along genetic lines of least resistance. Evolution 50:1766–1774.Google Scholar
Schmidt, W. 1984. Neogene stratigraphy and geologic history of the Apalachicola Embayment, Florida. Florida Geological Survey Bulletin 58:1–146.Google Scholar
Smith, J. T., and Roy, K. 2006. Selectivity during background extinction: Plio-Pleistocene scallops in California. Paleobiology 32:408–416.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1986. Anatomy of a regional mass extinction: Plio-Pleistocene decimation of the Western Atlantic bivalve fauna. Palaios 1:17–36.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1988. Adaptive morphology of the shell in bivalves and gastropods. Pp. 105–141 in Trueman, E. R. and Clark, M. R., eds. The Mollusca, Vol. 11. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1990. Delayed recovery and the spacing of mass extinctions. Paleobiology 16:401–414.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M., and Campbell, L. D. 1981. Neogene mass extinction of Western Atlantic mollusks. Nature 293:457–459.Google Scholar
Strauss, R. E. 1991. Correlations between heterozygosity and phenotypic variability in Cottus (Teleostei: Cottidae): character components. Evolution 45:1950–1956.Google Scholar
Todd, J. A., Jackson, J. B. C., Johnson, K. G., Fortunato, H. M., Heitz, A., Alvarez, M., and Jung, P. 2002. The ecology of extinction: molluscan feeding and faunal turnover in the Caribbean Neogene. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 269:571–577.Google Scholar
Tomeček, J., Kováč, V., and Katina, S. 2007. Biological flexibility of pumpkinseed, a successful coloniser throughout Europe. Pp. 307–336 in Gherardi, F., ed. Freshwater bioinvaders: profiles, distribution, and threats. Springer, Dordrecht.Google Scholar
Van Valen, L. 1965. Morphological variation and width of ecological niche. American Naturalist 99:377–390.Google Scholar
Vermeij, G. J. 1990. Tropical Pacific pelecypods and productivity: a hypothesis. Bulletin of Marine Science 47:62–67.Google Scholar
Vermeij, G. J., and Petuch, E. J. 1986. Differential extinction in tropical American mollusks. Endemism, architecture, and the Panama land bridge. Malacologia 27:29–41.Google Scholar
Via, S., Gomulkiewicz, R., Dejong, G., Scheiner, S. M., Schlichting, C. D., and Vantienderen, P. H. 1995. Adaptive phenotypic plasticity—consensus and controversy. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 10:212–217.Google Scholar
Ward, L. W. 1992. Diagnostic mollusks from the APAC Pit, Sarasota, Florida. In Scott, T. M. and Allmon, W. D., eds. The Plio-Pleistocene stratigraphy and paleontology of southern Florida. Florida Geological Survey Special Publication 36:161–166.Google Scholar
Webster, M. 2007. A Cambrian peak in morphological variation within trilobite species. Science 317:499–502.Google Scholar
Willard, D. A., Cronin, T. M., Ishman, S. E., and Litwin, R. J. 1993. Terrestrial and marine records of climatic and environmental changes during the Pliocene of subtropical Florida. Geology 21:679–682.Google Scholar
Woodring, W. P. 1966. The Panama land bridge as a sea barrier. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 110:425–433.Google Scholar
Yeamon, S., and Jarvis, A. 2006. Regional heterogeneity and gene flow maintain variance in a quantitative trait within populations of lodgepole pine. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 273:1587–1593.Google Scholar
Yezerinac, S. M., Lougheed, S. C., and Handford, P. 1992. Morphological variability and enzyme heterozygosity: individual and population level correlations. Evolution 46:1959–1964.Google Scholar
Záhorská, E., Kováč, V., Falka, I., Katina, S., Copp, G. H., and Gozlan, R. E. 2009. Morphological variability of the Asiatic cyprinid, topmouth gudgeon Pseudorasbora parva, in its introduced European range. Journal of Fish Biology 74:167–185.Google Scholar
Zeldtich, M. L., Swiderski, D. L., Sheets, H. D., and Fink, W. L. 2004. Geometric morphometrics for biologists: a primer. Elsevier Academic Press, San Diego.Google Scholar