Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T09:15:49.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Preservation is predictable: quantifying the effect of taphonomic biases on ecological disparity in birds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2015

Jonathan S. Mitchell
Jonathan S. Mitchell*
Affiliation:
Committee on Evolutionary Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IllinoisU.S.A., 60637. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Evolutionary inferences from fossil data often require accurately reconstructing differences in richness and morphological disparity between fossil sites across space and time. Biases such as sampling and rock availability are commonly accounted for in large-scale studies; however, preservation bias is usually dealt with only in smaller, more focused studies. Birds represent a diverse, but taphonomically fragile, group commonly used to infer environmental conditions in recent (Pleistocene and later) fossil assemblages, and their relative scarcity in the fossil record has led to controversy over the timing of their radiation. Here, I use simulations to show how even weak taphonomic biases can distort estimates of richness, and render variance sensitive to sample size. I then apply an ecology-based filtering model to recent bird assemblages to quantify the distortion induced by taphonomy. Certain deposit types, such as caves, show less evidence of taphonomic distortion than others, such as fluvial and lacustrine deposits. Archaeological middens unsurprisingly show some of the strongest evidence for taphonomic bias, and they should be avoided when reconstructing Pleistocene and early Holocene environments. Further, these results support previously suggested methods for detecting fossil assemblages that are relatively faithfully preserved (e.g., presence of difficult-to-preserve taxa), and I use these results to recommend that future large-scale studies include facies diversity along with metrics such as rock volume, or compare only sites with similar taphonomic histories.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 353 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 The Paleontological Society. All rights reserved. 

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

Alroy, J. 2010. Geographical, environmental and intrinsic biotic controls on Phanerozoic marine diversification. Palaeontology 53:1211–1235.Google Scholar
Badgley, C. 1986. Counting individuals in mammalian fossil assemblages from fluvial environments. Palaios 1:328–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A. K., Kidwell, S. M., and Gastaldo, R. A.. 2000. Taphonomy and paleobiology. Paleobiology 26:103–147.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A. K., Stayton, C. T., and Chapman, R. E.. 2003. Taphonomy and ecology of modern avifaunal remains from Amboseli Park, Kenya. Paleobiology 29:52–70.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A. K., Fürsich, F. T., Gastaldo, R. A., Kidwell, S. M., Kosnik, M. A., Kowalewski, M., Plotnick, R. E., Rogers, R. R., and Alroy, J.. 2005. Are the most durable shelly taxa also the most common in the marine fossil record? Paleobiology 31:607–623.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, A. L., Evans, W. C., and Jones, I. L.. 2012. Avian mortality associated with a volcanic gas seep as Kiska Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Wilson Journal of Ornithology 124:146–151.Google Scholar
Bottjer, D. J., and Jablonski, D.. 1988. Paleoenvironmental patterns in the evolution of Post-Paleozoic benthic marine invertebrates. Palaios 3:540–560.Google Scholar
Brown, J., Rest, J., Garcia-Moreno, J., Sorenson, M., and Mindell, D.. 2008. Strong mitochondrial DNA support for a Cetaceous origin of modern avian lineages. BMC Biology 6:6. doi:10.1186/1741-7007-6-6.Google Scholar
Brusatte, S. R. Butler, Barrett, P., Carrano, M., Evans, D., Lloyd, G., Mannion, P., Norell, M., Peppe, D., Upchurch, P., and Williamson, T.. 2014. The extinction of the dinosaurs. Biological Reviews, doi:10.1111/brv.12128.Google Scholar
Cooper, A., and Penny, D.. 1997. Mass survival of birds across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary: molecular evidence. Science 275:1109–1113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooper, R. A., Maxwell, P. A., Crampton, J. S., Beu, A. G., Jones, C. M., and Marshall, B. A.. 2006. Completeness of the fossil record: estimating losses due to small body size. Geology 34:241–244.Google Scholar
Damuth, J. 1982. Analysis of the preservation of community structure in assemblages of fossil mammals. Paleobiology 8:434–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunning, J. B. 1992. CRC Handbook of avian body masses, 2nd ed. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fla.Google Scholar
Hackett, S. J., Kimball, R. T., Reddy, S., Bowie, R. C. K., Braun, E. L., Braun, M. J., Chojnowski, J. L., Cox, W. A., Han, K.-L., Harshman, J., Huddleston, C. J., Marks, B. D., Miglia, K. J., Moore, W. S., Sheldon, F. H., Steadman, D. W., Witt, C. C., and Yuri, T.. 2008. A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their evolutionary history. Science 320:1763–1768.Google Scholar
Hadly, E. A. 1999. Fidelity of terrestrial vertebrate fossils to a modern ecosystem. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 149:389–409.Google Scholar
Holland, S. M. 2003. Confidence limits on fossil ranges that account for facies changes. Paleobiology 29:468–479.Google Scholar
Johnson, R. G. 1960. Models and methods for analysis of the mode of formation of fossil assemblages. Geological Society of America Bulletin 71:1075–1086.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidwell, S. M., Best, M. M. R., and Kaufman, D. S.. 2005. Taphonomic trade-offs in tropical marine death assemblages: differential time-averaging, shell loss, and probable bias in siliciclastic vs. carbonate facies. Geology 33:729–732.Google Scholar
Kosnik, M. A., Alroy, J., Behrensmeyer, A. K., Fürsich, F. T., Gastaldo, R. A., Kidwell, S. M., Kowalewski, M., Plotnick, R. E., Rogers, R. R., and Wagner, P. J.. 2011. Changes in shell durability of common marine taxa through the Phanerozoic: evidence for biological rather than taphonomic drivers. Paleobiology 37:303–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ksepka, D. T., and Boyd, C. A.. 2012. Quantifying historical trends in the completeness of the fossil record and the contributing factors: an example using Aves. Paleobiology 38:112–125.Google Scholar
Ksepka, D. T., Ware, J. L., and Lamm, K. S.. 2014. Flying rocks and flying clocks: disparity in the fossil and molecular dates for birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 281(2): 0140677.Google ScholarPubMed
Lawrence, D. R. 1968. Taphonomy and information losses in fossil communities. Geological Society of America Bulletin 79:1315–1330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyson, T. R., and Longrich, N. R.. 2011. Spatial niche partitioning in dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of North America. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 278:1158–1164; doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.1444.Google Scholar
Marti, C. D., and Kochert, M. N.. 1995. Are red-tailed hawks and great horned owls diurnal-nocturnal dietary counterparts? Wilson Bulletin 107:615–628.Google Scholar
Miller, J. H. 2012. The spatial fidelity of skeletal remains: elk wintering and calving grounds revealed by bones on the Yellowstone landscape. Ecology 93:2474–2482.Google Scholar
Miller, J. H., Druckenmiller, P., and Bahn, V.. 2013. Antlers of the Arctic Refuge: capturing multi-generational patterns of calving ground use from bones on the landscape. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 280:20130275; doi:10.1098/rspb.2013.0275.Google Scholar
Mitchell, J. M., and Makovicky, P. J.. 2014. Low ecological disparity in Mesozoic birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 281; doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.0608.Google Scholar
Newham, E., Benson, R., Upchurch, P., and Goswami, A.. 2014. Mesozoic mammaliaform diversity: the effect of sampling corrections on reconstructions of evolutionary dynamics. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 412:32–44.Google Scholar
Olszewski, T. 1999. Taking advantage of time-averaging. Paleobiology 25:226–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pacheco, M. A., Battistuzzi, F. U., Lentino, M., Aguilar, R., Kumar, S., and Escalante, A. A.. 2011. Evolution of modern birds revealed by mitogenomics: timing the radiation and origin of major orders. Molecular Biology and Evolution 28:1927–1942. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msr014.Google Scholar
Peters, S. E., and Heim, N. A.. 2010. The geological completeness of paleontological sampling in North America. Paleobiology 36:61–79.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1975. Taxonomic diversity estimation using rarefaction. Paleobiology 1:333–342.Google Scholar
Rogers, R. R., and Brady, M. E.. 2010. Origins of microfossil bonebeds: insights from the Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation of north-central Montana. Paleobiology 36:80–112.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr., Bambach, R. K., Raup, D. M., and Valentine, J. W.. 1981. Phanerozoic marine diversity and the fossil record. Nature 293:435–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shipley, B. 2010. Community assembly, natural selection and maximum entropy models. Oikos 119:604–609.Google Scholar
Shipley, B., Vile, D., and Garnier, E.. 2006. From plant traits to plant communities: a statistical mechanistic approach to biodiversity. Science 314:812–814.Google Scholar
Terry, R. 2010. On raptors and rodents: testing the ecological fidelity and spatiotemporal resolution of cave death assemblages. Paleobiology 36:137–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turvey, S. T., and Blackburn, T. M.. 2011. Determinants of species abundance in the Quaternary vertebrate fossil record. Paleobiology 37:537–546.Google Scholar
Valentine, J. W. 1989. How good was the fossil record? Clues from the California Pleistocene. Paleobiology 15:83–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vermeij, G. J., and Herbert, G. S.. 2004. Measuring proportional abundance in fossil and living assemblages. Paleobiology 30:1–4.Google Scholar
Warton, D. I., Shipley, B., and Hastie, R.. 2014. CATS regression a model-based approach to studying community assembly. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. doi: 10.1111/2041-210X.12280.Google Scholar