Models presented here of shallow-marine siliciclastic deposition show that the widths of depth-defined regions differ markedly in response to sea-level change. These models add to recent studies that have emphasized the highly specific response of habitat area to sea-level change. Collectively, these studies indicate that a particular bathymetric zone on a particular margin may vary substantially in area during a sea-level change, while other such zones and margins may experience little or even opposite responses. In the models presented here, intermediate-depth and deep-water regions tend to show sinusoidal variations in width, with widening during relative falls in sea level and narrowing during relative rises. The shallow-water region displays markedly non-sinusoidal change and is consistently characterized by abrupt widening at the beginning of the highstand systems tract and an equally abrupt narrowing at the onset of sea-level fall at the beginning of the falling-stage systems tract. These onshore-offshore differences in how width and area change with sea level may explain why taxa in shallow-water settings tend to be more abundant, eurytopic, and widespread than those in deeper-water settings. Likewise, these models suggest that the evolution of novelty in nearshore habitats may be a response to wide variation in shallow-marine area during sea-level change.

Fossil bivalve shells are well-suited for landmark/semilandmark morphometric analysis because they preserve both traces of the internal anatomy and the whole shell outline. Utilizing landmarks and semilandmarks, we have characterized internal and external shape variation in a monophyletic clade of Cenozoic New Zealand and Australian crassatellid bivalves, to test the contiguity in morphospace of species-level taxa and to quantitatively examine the “Concept of Independent Entities” of Yonge (1953). Thirteen species from two genera (Spissatella Finlay 1926 and Eucrassatella Iredale 1924) are investigated. Spissatella n. sp. C is confirmed as forming a contiguous group separate to S. trailli and S. clifdenensis. Shell outline and internal anatomy are found to covary in shape, refuting the “Concept of Independent Entities” in the study group.

Extinction in the fossil record is most often measured by the percentage of taxa (species, genera, families, etc.) that go extinct in a certain time interval. This is a measure of taxonomic loss, but previous work has indicated that taxonomic loss may be decoupled from the ecological effects of an extinction. To understand the role extinction plays in ecological change, extinction should also be measured in terms of loss of functional diversity. This study tests whether ecological changes increase correspondingly with taxonomic changes during the Late Ordovician M4/M5 extinction, the Ordovician/Silurian mass extinction, and the Late Devonian mass extinction. All three extinctions are evaluated with regional data sets from the eastern United States. Ecological effects are measured by classifying organisms into ecological lifestyles, which are groups based on ecological function rather than evolutionary history. The taxonomic and ecological effects of each extinction are evaluated with additive diversity partitioning, detrended correspondence analysis, and relative abundance distributions. Although the largest taxonomic changes occur in the Ordovician/Silurian extinction, the largest ecological changes occur in the Late Devonian extinction. These results suggest that the ecological consequences of extinction need to be considered in addition to the taxonomic effects of extinction.

One of the most enduring evolutionary metaphors is Van Valen's (1973) Red Queen. According to this metaphor, as one species in a community adapts by becoming better able to acquire and defend resources, species with which it interacts are adversely affected. If those other species do not continuously adapt to compensate for this biotically caused deterioration, they will be driven to extinction. Continuous adaptation of all species in a community prevents any single species from gaining a long-term advantage; this amounts to the Red Queen running in place. We have critically examined the assumptions on which the Red Queen metaphor was founded. We argue that the Red Queen embodies three demonstrably false assumptions: (1) evolutionary adaptation is continuous; (2) organisms are important agents of extinction; and (3) evolution is a zero-sum process in which living things divide up an unchanging quantity of resources. Changes in the selective regime need not always elicit adaptation, because most organisms function adequately under many “suboptimal” conditions and often compensate by demonstrating adaptive flexibility. Likewise, ecosystems are organized in such a way that they tend to be robust and capable of absorbing invasions and extinctions, at least up to a point. With a simple evolutionary game involving three species, we show that Red Queen dynamics (continuous adaptation by all interacting species) apply in only a very small minority of possible outcomes. Importantly, cooperation and facilitation among species enable competitors to increase ecosystem productivity and therefore to enlarge the pool and turnover of resources. The Red Queen reigns only under a few unusual circumstances.

Geochemical tools, including the analysis of stable isotopes from fossil mammals, are often used to infer regional climatic and environmental differences. We have further developed an oxygen isotope aridity index and used oxygen (δ¹⁸O) isotope values and carbon (δ¹³C) isotope values to assess regional climatic differences between the southeastern and southwestern United States during the Pleistocene. Using data collected from previously published studies, we assigned taxa to evaporation-sensitivity categories by quantifying the frequency and magnitude of aridity index values (i.e., an average taxon δ¹⁸O value minus a site specific proboscidean δ¹⁸O value). Antilocapridae, Camelidae, Equidae, and Cervidae were identified as evaporation-sensitive families, meaning that a majority of their water comes from the food they eat, thus indicating that they are more likely to capture changing climatic conditions. Bovidae, Tayassuidae, and Tapiridae were identified as less sensitive families, possibly because of increased or more variable drinking behavior. While it is difficult to tease out individual influences on δ¹⁸O values in tooth enamel, the use of an aridity index will provide a more in-depth look at relative aridity in the fossil record. Greater aridity index values in the Southwest suggest a drier climate than in the Southeast during the Pleistocene, and δ¹³C values suggest that diet does not determine evaporation sensitivity. The combination of more-positive δ¹³C values and the lack of forest indicator taxa in the Southwest suggest that landscapes were more open than in the Southeast. Inferred higher aridity in the Southwest may indicate that aridity or seasonal aridity/precipitation, not temperature or pCO₂, was a greater driver of C₄ abundance during the Pleistocene. Collectively, these data suggest that regional climatic and environmental interpretations can be improved by using an aridity index and a more detailed understanding of mammalian paleobiology.

The presumed affinities of the Terminal Neoproterozoic Ediacara biota have been much debated. However, even in the absence of concrete evidence for phylogenetic affinity, numerical paleoecological approaches can be effectively used to make inferences about organismal biology, the nature of biotic interactions, and life history. Here, we examine the population structure of three Ediacaran rangeomorph taxa (Fractofusus, Beothukis, and Pectinifrons), and one non-rangeomorph taxon (Thectardis) across five fossil surfaces around the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland, through analysis of size-frequency distributions using Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). Best-supported models resolve communities of all studied Ediacaran taxa at Mistaken Point as single cohorts with wide variance. This result is best explained in terms of a “continuous reproduction” model, whereby Ediacaran organisms reproduce aseasonally, so that multiple size modes are absent from preserved communities. Modern benthic invertebrates (both as a whole and within specific taxonomic groups) in deeper-water settings reproduce both seasonally and aseasonally; distinguishing between biological (i.e., continuous reproductive strategies) and environmental (lack of a seasonal trigger) causes for this pattern is therefore difficult. However, we hypothesize that the observed population structure could reflect the lack of a trigger for reproduction in deepwater settings (i.e., seasonal flux of organic matter), until the explosive appearance of mesozooplankton near the base of the Cambrian.

The turnover-pulse hypothesis (TPH) makes explicit predictions concerning the potential responses of species to climate change, which is considered to be a major cause of faunal turnover (extinction, speciation, and migration). Previous studies have tested the TPH primarily by examining temporal correlations between turnover pulses and climatic events. It is rarely possible to dissect such correlations and observe turnover as it is occurring or to predict how different lineages will respond to climate change. Thus, whether climate change drives faunal turnover in the manner predicted by the TPH remains unclear. In this study, we test the underlying mechanics of the TPH using well-dated Quaternary ungulate records from southern Africa's Cape Floristic Region (CFR). Changes in sea level, vegetation, and topographic barriers across glacial-interglacial transitions in southern Africa caused shifts in habitat size and configuration, allowing us to generate specific predictions concerning the responses of ungulates characterized by different feeding habits and habitat preferences. Examples from the CFR show how climatically forced vegetation change and allopatry can drive turnover resulting from extinction and migration. Evidence for speciation is lacking, suggesting either that climate change does not cause speciation in these circumstances or that the evolutionary outcome of turnover is contingent on the nature and rate of climate change. Migrations and extinctions are observed in the CFR fossil record over geologically short time intervals, on the order of Milankovitch-scale climate oscillations. We propose that such climate oscillations could drive a steady and moderate level of faunal turnover over 10⁴-year time scales, which would not be resolved in paleontological records spanning 10⁵ years and longer. A turnover pulse, which is a marked increase in turnover relative to previous and subsequent time periods, requires additional, temporally constrained climatic forcing or other processes that could accelerate evolutionary change, perhaps mediated through biotic interactions.

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ca. 55.8 Ma) is thought to coincide with a profound but entirely transient change among nannoplankton communities throughout the ocean. Here we explore the ecology of nannoplankton during the PETM by using multivariate analyses of a global data set that is based upon the distribution of taxa in time and space. We use these results, coupled with stable isotope data and geochemical modeling, to reinterpret the ecology of key genera. The results of the multivariate analyses suggest that the community was perturbed significantly in coastal and high-latitudes sites compared to the open ocean, and the relative influence of temperature and nutrient availability on the assemblage varies regionally. The open ocean became more stratified and less productive during the PETM and the oligotrophic assemblage responded primarily to changes in nutrient availability. Alternatively, assemblages at the equator and in the Southern Ocean responded to temperature more than to nutrient reduction. In addition, the assemblage change at the PETM was not merely transient—there is evidence of adaptation and a long-term change in the nannoplankton community that persists after the PETM and results in the disappearance of a high-latitude assemblage. The long-term effect on communities caused by transient warming during the PETM has implications for modern-day climate change, suggesting similar permanent changes to nannoplankton community structure as the oceans warm.

Whether or not climate plays a causal role in mammal body-size evolution is one of the longest-standing debates in ecology. Bergmann's Rule, the longest-standing modeladdressing this topic, posits that geographic body-mass patterns are driven by temperature, whereas subsequent research has suggested that other ecological variables, particularly precipitation and seasonality, may be the major drivers of body-size evolution. While paleoecological data provide a unique and crucial perspective on this debate, paleontological tests of Bergmann's rule and its corollaries have been scarce. We present a study of body-size evolution in three ecologically distinct families of mammal (equids, canids, and sciurids) during the Oligo-Miocene of the northwest United States, an ideal natural laboratory for such studies because of its rich fossil and paleoclimatic records. Body-size trends are different in all three groups, and in no case is a significant relationship observed between body size and any climatic variable, counter to what has been observed in modern ecosystems. We suggest that for most of the Cenozoic, at least in the Northwest, body mass has not been driven by any one climatic factor but instead has been the product of complex interactions between organisms and their environments, though the nature of these interactions varies from taxon to taxon. The relationship that exists between climate and body size in many groups of modern mammals, therefore, is the exception to the rule and may be the product of an exceptionally cool and volatile global climate. As anthropogenic global warming continues and ushers in climatic conditions more comparable to earlier intervals of the Cenozoic than to the modern day, models of corresponding biotic variables such as body size may lose predictive power if they do not incorporate paleoecological data.