Dataset Information

The Lilliput effect in colonial organisms: cheilostome bryozoans at the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.

ABSTRACT: Consistent trends towards decreasing body size in the aftermath of mass extinctions--Lilliput effects--imply a predictable response among unitary animals to these events. The occurrence of Lilliput effects has yet to be widely tested in colonial organisms, which are of particular interest as size change may potentially occur at the two hierarchical levels of the colony and the individual zooids. Bryozoans are particularly useful organisms in which to study colonial size response as they have well-defined zooids. Additionally, a number of analyses of present-day bryozoans have shown that zooid size reflects local environmental conditions, most notably seawater temperature and possibly also food supply. Following the hypothesised decline in primary productivity at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction, it is predicted that bryozoan zooid size should decline in the early Paleogene, resulting in a Lilliput effect. To test this prediction, zooid size was compared across the K-Pg boundary at the assemblage level and also within 4 surviving genera. Analysis of 59 bryozoan species from assemblages on either side of the K-Pg boundary showed no significant change in zooid length. Zooid size was also measured in 98 Maastrichtian colonies and 162 Danian colonies belonging to four congeneric species. Only one of these genera showed a significant size decrease across the K-Pg boundary, the other three maintaining constant zooidal lengths, widths and areas. Additionally, the sizes of 210 Maastrichtian colonies and 163 Danian colonies did not show consistent size decrease across the K-Pg boundary in these same species, although maximum colony size did decline in three out of four genera. Furthermore, this lack of consistent size change is uniform between two distinct biogeographical regions, Denmark and the southeastern USA.

SUBMITTER: Sogot CE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3914794 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

The Lilliput effect in colonial organisms: cheilostome bryozoans at the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.

Sogot Caroline E CE Harper Elizabeth M EM Taylor Paul D PD

PloS one 20140205 2

Consistent trends towards decreasing body size in the aftermath of mass extinctions--Lilliput effects--imply a predictable response among unitary animals to these events. The occurrence of Lilliput effects has yet to be widely tested in colonial organisms, which are of particular interest as size change may potentially occur at the two hierarchical levels of the colony and the individual zooids. Bryozoans are particularly useful organisms in which to study colonial size response as they have wel ...[more]

PMID: 24505275

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Project description:The consequences of the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary (KPB) mass extinction for the evolution of plant diversity remain poorly understood, even though evolutionary turnover of plant lineages at the KPB is central to understanding assembly of the Cenozoic biota. The apparent concentration of whole genome duplication (WGD) events around the KPB may have played a role in survival and subsequent diversification of plant lineages. To gain new insights into the origins of Cenozoic biodiversity, we examine the origin and early evolution of the globally diverse legume family (Leguminosae or Fabaceae). Legumes are ecologically (co-)dominant across many vegetation types, and the fossil record suggests that they rose to such prominence after the KPB in parallel with several well-studied animal clades including Placentalia and Neoaves. Furthermore, multiple WGD events are hypothesized to have occurred early in legume evolution. Using a recently inferred phylogenomic framework, we investigate the placement of WGDs during early legume evolution using gene tree reconciliation methods, gene count data and phylogenetic supernetwork reconstruction. Using 20 fossil calibrations we estimate a revised timeline of legume evolution based on 36 nuclear genes selected as informative and evolving in an approximately clock-like fashion. To establish the timing of WGDs we also date duplication nodes in gene trees. Results suggest either a pan-legume WGD event on the stem lineage of the family, or an allopolyploid event involving (some of) the earliest lineages within the crown group, with additional nested WGDs subtending subfamilies Papilionoideae and Detarioideae. Gene tree reconciliation methods that do not account for allopolyploidy may be misleading in inferring an earlier WGD event at the time of divergence of the two parental lineages of the polyploid, suggesting that the allopolyploid scenario is more likely. We show that the crown age of the legumes dates to the Maastrichtian or early Paleocene and that, apart from the Detarioideae WGD, paleopolyploidy occurred close to the KPB. We conclude that the early evolution of the legumes followed a complex history, in which multiple auto- and/or allopolyploidy events coincided with rapid diversification and in association with the mass extinction event at the KPB, ultimately underpinning the evolutionary success of the Leguminosae in the Cenozoic. [Allopolyploidy; Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary; Fabaceae, Leguminosae; paleopolyploidy; phylogenomics; whole genome duplication events].

Dataset Information

The Lilliput effect in colonial organisms: cheilostome bryozoans at the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.

Publications

The Lilliput effect in colonial organisms: cheilostome bryozoans at the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.

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