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Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage

Exceptionally preserved fossil sites have allowed specimen-based identification of trophic interactions to which network analyses have been applied. However, network analyses of the fossil record suffer from incomplete and indirect data, time averaging that obscures species coexistence, and biases i...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Swain, Anshuman, Devereux, Matthew, Fagan, William F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8010449/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33817576
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102271
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author Swain, Anshuman
Devereux, Matthew
Fagan, William F.
author_facet Swain, Anshuman
Devereux, Matthew
Fagan, William F.
author_sort Swain, Anshuman
collection PubMed
description Exceptionally preserved fossil sites have allowed specimen-based identification of trophic interactions to which network analyses have been applied. However, network analyses of the fossil record suffer from incomplete and indirect data, time averaging that obscures species coexistence, and biases in preservation. Here, we present a high-resolution fossil data set from Raymond Quarry member of the mid-Cambrian Burgess Shale (7,549 specimens, 61 taxa, ∼510 Mya) and formulate a measure of “preservation bias” that aids identification of assemblage subsets to which network analyses can be reliably applied. For these sections, abundance correlation network analyses predicted longitudinally consistent trophic and competitive interactions. Our analyses predicted previously postulated trophic interactions with 83.5% accuracy and demonstrated a shift from specialist interaction-dominated assemblages to ones dominated by generalist and competitive interactions. This approach provides a robust, taphonomically corrected framework to explore and predict in detail the existence and ecological character of putative interactions in fossil data sets.
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spelling pubmed-80104492021-04-02 Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage Swain, Anshuman Devereux, Matthew Fagan, William F. iScience Article Exceptionally preserved fossil sites have allowed specimen-based identification of trophic interactions to which network analyses have been applied. However, network analyses of the fossil record suffer from incomplete and indirect data, time averaging that obscures species coexistence, and biases in preservation. Here, we present a high-resolution fossil data set from Raymond Quarry member of the mid-Cambrian Burgess Shale (7,549 specimens, 61 taxa, ∼510 Mya) and formulate a measure of “preservation bias” that aids identification of assemblage subsets to which network analyses can be reliably applied. For these sections, abundance correlation network analyses predicted longitudinally consistent trophic and competitive interactions. Our analyses predicted previously postulated trophic interactions with 83.5% accuracy and demonstrated a shift from specialist interaction-dominated assemblages to ones dominated by generalist and competitive interactions. This approach provides a robust, taphonomically corrected framework to explore and predict in detail the existence and ecological character of putative interactions in fossil data sets. Elsevier 2021-03-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8010449/ /pubmed/33817576 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102271 Text en © 2021 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Swain, Anshuman
Devereux, Matthew
Fagan, William F.
Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage
title Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage
title_full Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage
title_fullStr Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage
title_full_unstemmed Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage
title_short Deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-Cambrian assemblage
title_sort deciphering trophic interactions in a mid-cambrian assemblage
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8010449/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33817576
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102271
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