Search results for "extinction"
showing 10 items of 458 documents
Erratum to “Palaeoecological context for the extinction of the Neanderthals: A small mammal study of Stratigraphic Unit V of the El Salt site, Alcoi,…
2021
El Salt is an important reference site for understanding the extinction of Neanderthal populations in the eastern Iberian Peninsula during MIS 3. In this paper, we describe the small mammal assemblage from Stratigraphic Unit V, the youngest unit with evidence of human presence, based on nearly 1300 specimens. A total of seven rodents (Microtus arvalis, Microtus duodecimcostatus, Microtus cabrerae, Sciurus vulgaris, Arvicola sapidus, Eliomys quercinus and Apodemus sylvaticus), three insectivores (Talpa occidentalis, Crocidura sp., Sorex sp.) and one lagomorph (Oryctolagus cf. cuniculus) were identified. Palaeocological analyses point to drier conditions in this part of the stratigraphic sequ…
Unravelling extrinsic and intrinsic factors of the early Palaeozoic diversification of blastozoan echinoderms
2010
19 pages; International audience; The Subphylum Blastozoa represents more than one third of the early Palaeozoic echinoderm fauna. A comprehensive database including all records of blastozoans was built to provide quantitative analyses of palaeogeography and diversity patterns and processes, for the 10 classes currently included in this subphylum during the early Palaeozoic. The global pattern of taxonomic diversity shows two peaks during the Cambrian Series 3 and the Late Ordovician intervals. In Cambrian times, the high taxonomic diversity seems to be related with a high turnover rate and a high endemicity of blastozoan genera, whereas in Ordovician times, the rise in diversity is associa…
COMMENT TO LEHRMANN ET AL. NEW SECTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS FROM THE NANPANJIANG BASIN, SOUTH CHINA
2016
In the study of Earth-surface environmental processes during the events associated with the Permian–Triassic boundary, a key issue is the nature of the latest Permian pre-extinction surface in shallow marine limestones in numerous sites, principally within the Tethyan realm. Sediments below this surface pre-date the extinction event, so that the limestones comprising these latest Permian facies contain diverse fossil remains of organisms that lived just before the extinction. At all reported sites, this surface is disconformably overlain by post-extinction sediments, which contain microbialites in many places, particularly in Tethys. The nature of the youngest pre-extinction surface remains…
Ammonite paleobiogeography during the Pliensbachian-Toarcian crisis (Early Jurassic) reflecting paleoclimate, eustasy, and extinctions.
2011
14 pages; International audience; The Pliensbachian-Toarcian crisis (Early Jurassic) is one of the major Mesozoic paleoecological disturbances when ca. 20% of marine and continental families went extinct. Contemporaneously, profound paleobiogeographical changes occurred in most oceanic domains including a disruption of ammonite provincialism during the Early Toarcian. Here, we quantitatively reappraise the structure and evolution of paleobiogeographical patterns displayed by ammonite faunas before, during, and after the biological crisis, over a time-interval including 13 biochronozones. The high-resolution study presented here involves the use of hierarchical Cluster Analyses, non-metric M…
The end-Triassic mass extinction: A new correlation between extinction events and δ13C fluctuations from a Triassic-Jurassic peritidal succession in …
2018
Abstract A new δ13Ccarb curve was obtained from an expanded peritidal succession in western Sicily and was used to investigate the relationships between isotopic signatures and biological events on carbonate platforms across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary (TJB). The resulting curve shows two main negative carbon isotopic excursions (CIEs) that fit well with the “Initial” and “Main” CIEs that are recognized worldwide and linked to the End-Triassic Extinction (ETE). In the studied section, the first negative CIE marks the disappearance of the large megalodontids, which were replaced by small and thin-shelled specimens, while the “Main” CIE corresponds to the last occurrence (LO) of the megalo…
Conodonts from Late Devonian island arc settings (Baruunhuurai Terrane, western Mongolia)
2020
Abstract Upper Devonian marine deposits of the Baruunhuurai Terrane in western Mongolia represent island arc settings, which yielded a diverse conodont assemblage of 30 taxa, including species of Ancyrognathus (as well as one new species), Icriodus, Mehlina, Polygnathus and Palmatolepis. Biodiversity analysis of Ancyrognathus, Pelekysgnathus, Mehlina and Icriodus shows that the Mongolian conodont assemblage consists of two endemic and few cosmopolitan taxa. Representatives of the otherwise globally distributed genus Pelekysgnathus are absent. An important factor influencing the regional distribution of conodont taxa seems to be the siliciclastic-dominated sedimentation of the Baruunhuurai T…
Late Quaternary changes in bat palaeobiodiversity and palaeobiogeography under climatic and anthropogenic pressure: new insights from Marie-Galante, …
2016
25 pages; International audience; Data on Lesser Antillean Late Quaternary fossil bat assemblages remains limited, leading to their general exclusion from studies focusing on Caribbean bat palaeobiodiversity and palaeobiogeography. Additionally, the role of climatic versus human pressure driving changes in faunal communities remains poorly understood. Here we describe a fossil bat assemblage from Blanchard Cave on Marie-Galante in the Lesser Antilles, which produced numerous bat remains from a well-dated, stratified context. Our study reveals the occurrence of at least 12 bat species during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene on Marie-Galante, whereas only eight species are currently kn…
Biodiversity is not (and never has been) a bed of roses!
2011
9 pages; International audience; Over the last decades, the critical study of fossil diversity has led to significant advances in the knowledge of global macroevolutionary patterns of biodiversity. The deep-time history of life on Earth results from background originations and extinctions defining a steady-state, nonstationary equilibrium occasionally perturbed by biotic crises and "explosive" diversifications. More recently, a macroecological approach to the large-scale distribution of extant biodiversity offered new, stimulating perspectives on old theoretical questions and current practical problems in conservation biology. However, time and space are practically distinct, but functional…
Evolutionary trends within Jurassic ammonoids.
2015
An evolutionary trend is a pattern of traits shifting in a given direction over a sufficiently long period of time to be detected. In this study, we examine trends among Jurassic ammonoids. First, a compilation of selected literature on evolutionary patterns and trends leads to the conclusion that such trends have rarely been studied among Jurassic ammonoids and even more rarely are they formally studied using statistical tests. Second, a preliminary survey of trends for the entire Jurassic at the family level (based on four published articles) suggests two sustained trends occurred each lasting nearly 10 myr: the Early Jurassic and Middle Jurassic radiations, which were related to the firs…
First occurrence of fossil vertebrates from the Carboniferous of Colombia
2020
Data concerning Paleozoic vertebrates from the South American continent are still scarce. In Colombia, occurrences were until now restricted to the Late Devonian fish assemblage from Floresta and, ...