Permian palaeoecology
This is my first Postdoc-Project. The funding was provided by the SNF (Swiss National Science Foundation) awarded to Michael Hautmann, starting date 12/2013 till 11/2015 (inofficially ongoing )
Goal
In the Early Triassic recovery project, we found that low-diverse benthic communities were also characterized by low faunal differentiation between habitats. In these ecosystems, even physically heterogeneous environments hosted very similar taxa suggesting a very low degree of habitat specialization in benthic macro invertebrate communities. This observation was attributed to the low degree of interspecific competition as a corollary of the low number of competing species in the wake of the mass extinction event. If translated into a diversity-depended model, it can be predicted that pre-extinction ecosystems would have been characterised by higher beta diversity. By analysing diversity partitioning in Permian benthic ecosystems, this project tests if fully diversified pre-extinction ecosystems show a higher habitat differentiation.
Involved people
Publications
Goal
In the Early Triassic recovery project, we found that low-diverse benthic communities were also characterized by low faunal differentiation between habitats. In these ecosystems, even physically heterogeneous environments hosted very similar taxa suggesting a very low degree of habitat specialization in benthic macro invertebrate communities. This observation was attributed to the low degree of interspecific competition as a corollary of the low number of competing species in the wake of the mass extinction event. If translated into a diversity-depended model, it can be predicted that pre-extinction ecosystems would have been characterised by higher beta diversity. By analysing diversity partitioning in Permian benthic ecosystems, this project tests if fully diversified pre-extinction ecosystems show a higher habitat differentiation.
Involved people
- Dr. M. Hautmann (bivalve researcher, project leader, supervisor)*
- Prof. H. Bucher (ammonoid researcher, supervisor)*
- Mischa Haas (student, field work assistant, ETH Zürich)
Publications
- Hofmann, R., Hautmann, M., and Bucher, H. (2017): Diversity partitioning in Permian and Early Triassic benthic ecosystems of the Western USA: A comparison. Historical Biology. 29(7), 918-930. Link
- Argyriou, T., Romano, Carrillo-Briceño, J. D., Brosse, M., and Hofmann, R. (2017): The oldest record of gnathostome fossils from Greece: Chondrichthyes from the Lopingian of Hydra Island. Palaeontologica Electronica Link
