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Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period
The first animals appear during the late Ediacaran (572 to 541 Ma); an initial diversity increase was followed reduction in diversity, often interpreted as catastrophic mass extinction. We investigate Ediacaran ecosystem structure changes over this time period using the “Elements of Metacommunity St...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9113585/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35580078 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001289 |
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author | Eden, Rebecca Manica, Andrea Mitchell, Emily G. |
author_facet | Eden, Rebecca Manica, Andrea Mitchell, Emily G. |
author_sort | Eden, Rebecca |
collection | PubMed |
description | The first animals appear during the late Ediacaran (572 to 541 Ma); an initial diversity increase was followed reduction in diversity, often interpreted as catastrophic mass extinction. We investigate Ediacaran ecosystem structure changes over this time period using the “Elements of Metacommunity Structure” framework to assess whether this diversity reduction in the Nama was likely caused by an external mass extinction, or internal metacommunity restructuring. The oldest metacommunity was characterised by taxa with wide environmental tolerances, and limited specialisation or intertaxa associations. Structuring increased in the second oldest metacommunity, with groups of taxa sharing synchronous responses to environmental gradients, aggregating into distinct communities. This pattern strengthened in the youngest metacommunity, with communities showing strong environmental segregation and depth structure. Thus, metacommunity structure increased in complexity, with increased specialisation and resulting in competitive exclusion, not a catastrophic environmental disaster, leading to diversity loss in the terminal Ediacaran. These results reveal that the complex eco-evolutionary dynamics associated with Cambrian diversification were established in the Ediacaran. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9113585 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-91135852022-05-18 Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period Eden, Rebecca Manica, Andrea Mitchell, Emily G. PLoS Biol Research Article The first animals appear during the late Ediacaran (572 to 541 Ma); an initial diversity increase was followed reduction in diversity, often interpreted as catastrophic mass extinction. We investigate Ediacaran ecosystem structure changes over this time period using the “Elements of Metacommunity Structure” framework to assess whether this diversity reduction in the Nama was likely caused by an external mass extinction, or internal metacommunity restructuring. The oldest metacommunity was characterised by taxa with wide environmental tolerances, and limited specialisation or intertaxa associations. Structuring increased in the second oldest metacommunity, with groups of taxa sharing synchronous responses to environmental gradients, aggregating into distinct communities. This pattern strengthened in the youngest metacommunity, with communities showing strong environmental segregation and depth structure. Thus, metacommunity structure increased in complexity, with increased specialisation and resulting in competitive exclusion, not a catastrophic environmental disaster, leading to diversity loss in the terminal Ediacaran. These results reveal that the complex eco-evolutionary dynamics associated with Cambrian diversification were established in the Ediacaran. Public Library of Science 2022-05-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9113585/ /pubmed/35580078 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001289 Text en © 2022 Eden et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Eden, Rebecca Manica, Andrea Mitchell, Emily G. Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period |
title | Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period |
title_full | Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period |
title_fullStr | Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period |
title_full_unstemmed | Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period |
title_short | Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period |
title_sort | metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the ediacaran period |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9113585/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35580078 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001289 |
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