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Dryad

Maximum recorded size of recent and fossil brachiopods

Data files

Mar 05, 2024 version files 65.24 KB

Abstract

Changes in predator-prey interactions are often implicated as drivers of major evolutionary change. A prominent example is the dramatic changes in shallow marine assemblages during the Mesozoic Marine Revolution (MMR) when major clades, including rhynchonelliform brachiopods, became restricted and less diverse. Currently, shallow water temperate and polar brachiopods can be large, but in the tropics, they are all small. By contrast, we demonstrate that throughout the Jurassic large brachiopods occurred in shallow sites, from polar to tropical latitudes, but are absent in later periods from tropical areas. These changes occurred in parallel in both major orders (Rhynchonellida and Terebratulida) and also independently within the two sub-ordinal lineages within the Terebratulida (terebratulinids and terebratellinids). Increases in both grazing and predation pressures associated with the MMR might account for this pattern. However, we note that many current environments support both large brachiopods and high densities of grazing species and suggest that the pattern fits more closely to the intensification of durophagous predation in shallow tropical waters.