Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

0 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Sharply increased insect herbivory during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

ABSTRACT: The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, 55.8 Ma), an abrupt global warming event linked to a transient increase in pCO2, was comparable in rate and magnitude to modern anthropogenic climate change. Here we use plant fossils from the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming to document the combined effects of temperature and pCO2 on insect herbivory. We examined 5,062 fossil leaves from five sites positioned before, during, and after the PETM (59-55.2 Ma). The amount and diversity of insect damage on angiosperm leaves, as well as the relative abundance of specialized damage, correlate with rising and falling temperature. All reach distinct maxima during the PETM, and every PETM plant species is extensively damaged and colonized by specialized herbivores. Our study suggests that increased insect herbivory is likely to be a net long-term effect of anthropogenic pCO2 increase and warming temperatures.

SUBMITTER: Currano ED

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2538865 | biostudies-other | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Publications

Sharply increased insect herbivory during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Currano Ellen D ED Wilf Peter P Wing Scott L SL Labandeira Conrad C CC Lovelock Elizabeth C EC Royer Dana L DL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20080211 6

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, 55.8 Ma), an abrupt global warming event linked to a transient increase in pCO2, was comparable in rate and magnitude to modern anthropogenic climate change. Here we use plant fossils from the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming to document the combined effects of temperature and pCO2 on insect herbivory. We examined 5,062 fossil leaves from five sites positioned before, during, and after the PETM (59-55.2 Ma). The amount and diversity of insect damage on angiosp ...[more]

PMID: 18268338

Similar Datasets

Transient dwarfism of soil fauna during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:Soil organisms, as recorded by trace fossils in paleosols of the Willwood Formation, Wyoming, show significant body-size reductions and increased abundances during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). Paleobotanical, paleopedologic, and oxygen isotope studies indicate high temperatures during the PETM and sharp declines in precipitation compared with late Paleocene estimates. Insect and oligochaete burrows increase in abundance during the PETM, suggesting longer periods of soil development and improved drainage conditions. Crayfish burrows and molluscan body fossils, abundant below and above the PETM interval, are significantly less abundant during the PETM, likely because of drier floodplain conditions and lower water tables. Burrow diameters of the most abundant ichnofossils are 30-46% smaller within the PETM interval. As burrow size is a proxy for body size, significant reductions in burrow diameter suggest that their tracemakers were smaller bodied. Smaller body sizes may have resulted from higher subsurface temperatures, lower soil moisture conditions, or nutritionally deficient vegetation in the high-CO(2) atmosphere inferred for the PETM. Smaller soil fauna co-occur with dwarf mammal taxa during the PETM; thus, a common forcing mechanism may have selected for small size in both above- and below-ground terrestrial communities. We predict that soil fauna have already shown reductions in size over the last 150 years of increased atmospheric CO(2) and surface temperatures or that they will exhibit this pattern over the next century. We retrodict also that soil fauna across the Permian-Triassic and Triassic-Jurassic boundary events show significant size decreases because of similar forcing mechanisms driven by rapid global warming.

| S-EPMC2757401 | biostudies-literature

Very large release of mostly volcanic carbon during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a global warming event that occurred about 56 million years ago, and is commonly thought to have been driven primarily by the destabilization of carbon from surface sedimentary reservoirs such as methane hydrates. However, it remains controversial whether such reservoirs were indeed the source of the carbon that drove the warming. Resolving this issue is key to understanding the proximal cause of the warming, and to quantifying the roles of triggers versus feedbacks. Here we present boron isotope data-a proxy for seawater pH-that show that the ocean surface pH was persistently low during the PETM. We combine our pH data with a paired carbon isotope record in an Earth system model in order to reconstruct the unfolding carbon-cycle dynamics during the event. We find strong evidence for a much larger (more than 10,000 petagrams)-and, on average, isotopically heavier-carbon source than considered previously. This leads us to identify volcanism associated with the North Atlantic Igneous Province, rather than carbon from a surface reservoir, as the main driver of the PETM. This finding implies that climate-driven amplification of organic carbon feedbacks probably played only a minor part in driving the event. However, we find that enhanced burial of organic matter seems to have been important in eventually sequestering the released carbon and accelerating the recovery of the Earth system.

| S-EPMC5582631 | biostudies-literature

Rapid Asia-Europe-North America geographic dispersal of earliest Eocene primate Teilhardina during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:True primates appeared suddenly on all three northern continents during the 100,000-yr-duration Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum at the beginning of the Eocene, approximately 55.5 mya. The simultaneous or nearly simultaneous appearance of euprimates on northern continents has been difficult to understand because the source area, immediate ancestors, and dispersal routes were all unknown. Now, omomyid haplorhine Teilhardina is known on all three continents in association with the carbon isotope excursion marking the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Relative position within the carbon isotope excursion indicates that Asian Teilhardina asiatica is oldest, European Teilhardina belgica is younger, and North American Teilhardina brandti and Teilhardina americana are, successively, youngest. Analysis of morphological characteristics of all four species supports an Asian origin and a westward Asia-to-Europe-to-North America dispersal for Teilhardina. High-resolution isotope stratigraphy indicates that this dispersal happened in an interval of approximately 25,000 yr. Rapid geographic dispersal and morphological character evolution in Teilhardina reported here are consistent with rates observed in other contexts.

| S-EPMC1544069 | biostudies-literature

Lithium isotope evidence for enhanced weathering and erosion during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ~55.9 Ma) was a geologically rapid warming period associated with carbon release, which caused a marked increase in the hydrological cycle. Here, we use lithium (Li) isotopes to assess the global change in weathering regime, a critical carbon drawdown mechanism, across the PETM. We find a negative Li isotope excursion of ~3‰ in both global seawater (marine carbonates) and in local weathering inputs (detrital shales). This is consistent with a very large delivery of clays to the oceans or a shift in the weathering regime toward higher physical erosion rates and sediment fluxes. Our seawater records are best explained by increases in global erosion rates of ~2× to 3× over 100 ka, combined with model-derived weathering increases of 50 to 60% compared to prewarming values. Such increases in weathering and erosion would have supported enhanced carbon burial, as both carbonate and organic carbon, thereby stabilizing climate.

| S-EPMC8519576 | biostudies-literature

The oldest North American primate and mammalian biogeography during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:Undoubted primates first appear almost synchronously in the fossil records of Asia, Europe, and North America. This temporal pattern has complicated efforts to reconstruct the early dispersal history of primates in relation to global climate change and eustatic fluctuations in sea level. Here, I describe fossils from the Tuscahoma Formation on the Gulf Coastal Plain of Mississippi documenting an anatomically primitive species of Teilhardina that is older than other North American and European primates. Consistent with its antiquity, a phylogenetic analysis of dental characters recognizes Teilhardina magnoliana, sp. nov., as the most basal member of this genus currently known from either North America or Europe. Its stratigraphic provenance demonstrates that primates originally colonized North America near the base of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), but before an important fall in eustatic sea level. Correlation based on carbon isotope stratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy indicates that the earliest North American primates inhabited coastal regions of the continent for thousands of years before they were able to colonize the Rocky Mountain Interior. The transient provincialism displayed by early North American primates corresponds to similar biogeographic patterns noted among fossil plants. Decreased precipitation in the Rocky Mountain Interior during the early part of the PETM may have been an important factor in maintaining biotic provincialism within North America at this time. These results underscore the need to obtain multiple, geographically dispersed records bearing on significant macroevolutionary events such as the PETM.

| S-EPMC2268774 | biostudies-literature

Capturing the global signature of surface ocean acidification during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:Geologically abrupt carbon perturbations such as the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, approx. 56 Ma) are the closest geological points of comparison to current anthropogenic carbon emissions. Associated with the rapid carbon release during this event are profound environmental changes in the oceans including warming, deoxygenation and acidification. To evaluate the global extent of surface ocean acidification during the PETM, we present a compilation of new and published surface ocean carbonate chemistry and pH reconstructions from various palaeoceanographic settings. We use boron to calcium ratios (B/Ca) and boron isotopes (δ11B) in surface- and thermocline-dwelling planktonic foraminifera to reconstruct ocean carbonate chemistry and pH. Our records exhibit a B/Ca reduction of 30-40% and a δ11B decline of 1.0-1.2‰ coeval with the carbon isotope excursion. The tight coupling between boron proxies and carbon isotope records is consistent with the interpretation that oceanic absorption of the carbon released at the onset of the PETM resulted in widespread surface ocean acidification. The remarkable similarity among records from different ocean regions suggests that the degree of ocean carbonate change was globally near uniform. We attribute the global extent of surface ocean acidification to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the main phase of the PETM.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Hyperthermals: rapid and extreme global warming in our geological past'.

| S-EPMC6127385 | biostudies-literature

Clay hydroxyl isotopes show an enhanced hydrologic cycle during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was an abrupt global warming event associated with a large injection of carbon into the ocean-atmosphere system, as evidenced by a diagnostic carbon isotope excursion (CIE). Evidence also suggests substantial hydrologic perturbations, but details have been hampered by a lack of appropriate proxies. To address this shortcoming, here we isolate and measure the isotopic composition of hydroxyl groups (OH-) in clay minerals from a highly expanded PETM section in the North Sea Basin, together with their bulk oxygen isotope composition. At this location, we show that hydroxyl O- and H-isotopes are less influenced than bulk values by clay compositional changes due to mixing and/or inherited signals and thus better track hydrologic variability. We find that clay OH- hydrogen-isotope values (δ2HOH) decrease slowly prior to the PETM and then abruptly by ∼8‰ at the CIE onset. Coincident with an increase in relative kaolinite content, this indicates increased rainfall and weathering and implies an enhanced hydrologic cycle response to global warming, particularly during the early stages of the PETM. Subsequently, δ2HOH returns to pre-PETM values well before the end of the CIE, suggesting hydrologic changes in the North Sea were short-lived relative to carbon-cycle perturbations.

| S-EPMC9780225 | biostudies-literature

The seawater carbon inventory at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) (55.6 Mya) was a geologically rapid carbon-release event that is considered the closest natural analog to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Recent work has used boron-based proxies in planktic foraminifera to characterize the extent of surface-ocean acidification that occurred during the event. However, seawater acidity alone provides an incomplete constraint on the nature and source of carbon release. Here, we apply previously undescribed culture calibrations for the B/Ca proxy in planktic foraminifera and use them to calculate relative changes in seawater-dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentration, surmising that Pacific surface-ocean DIC increased by [Formula: see text] µmol/kg during the peak-PETM. Making reasonable assumptions for the pre-PETM oceanic DIC inventory, we provide a fully data-driven estimate of the PETM carbon source. Our reconstruction yields a mean source carbon δ13C of -10‰ and a mean increase in the oceanic C inventory of +14,900 petagrams of carbon (PgC), pointing to volcanic CO2 emissions as the main carbon source responsible for PETM warming.

| S-EPMC7533689 | biostudies-literature

Coupled microbial bloom and oxygenation decline recorded by magnetofossils during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:Understanding marine environmental change and associated biological turnover across the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ~56?Ma)-the most pronounced Cenozoic short-term global warming event-is important because of the potential role of the ocean in atmospheric CO2 drawdown, yet proxies for tracing marine productivity and oxygenation across the PETM are limited and results remain controversial. Here we show that a high-resolution record of South Atlantic Ocean bottom water oxygenation can be extracted from exceptionally preserved magnetofossils-the bioinorganic magnetite nanocrystals produced by magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) using a new multiscale environmental magnetic approach. Our results suggest that a transient MTB bloom occurred due to increased nutrient supply. Bottom water oxygenation decreased gradually from the onset to the peak PETM. These observations provide a record of microbial response to the PETM and establish the value of magnetofossils as palaeoenvironmental indicators.

| S-EPMC6167317 | biostudies-literature

Extreme warmth and heat-stressed plankton in the tropics during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Project description:Global ocean temperatures rapidly warmed by ~5°C during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ~56 million years ago). Extratropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs) met or exceeded modern subtropical values. With these warm extratropical temperatures, climate models predict tropical SSTs >35°C-near upper physiological temperature limits for many organisms. However, few data are available to test these projected extreme tropical temperatures or their potential lethality. We identify the PETM in a shallow marine sedimentary section deposited in Nigeria. On the basis of planktonic foraminiferal Mg/Ca and oxygen isotope ratios and the molecular proxy [Formula: see text], latest Paleocene equatorial SSTs were ~33°C, and [Formula: see text] indicates that SSTs rose to >36°C during the PETM. This confirms model predictions on the magnitude of polar amplification and refutes the tropical thermostat theory. We attribute a massive drop in dinoflagellate abundance and diversity at peak warmth to thermal stress, showing that the base of tropical food webs is vulnerable to rapid warming.

| S-EPMC5336354 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

Tweets

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data