Digestive contents and food webs record the advent of dinosaur supremacy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Qvarnstrom, Martin; Wernstrom, Joel Vikberg; Wawrzyniak, Zuzanna; Barbacka, Maria; Pacyna, Grzegorz; Gorecki, Artur; Ziaja, Jadwiga; Jarzynka, Agata; Owocki, Krzysztof; Sulej, Tomasz; Marynowski, Leszek; Pienkowski, Grzegorz; Ahlberg, Per E.; Niedzwiedzki, Grzegorz
• 署名单位: Uppsala University; UiT The Arctic University of Tromso; University of Silesia in Katowice; Polish Academy of Sciences; W. Szafer Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Jagiellonian University; Polish Academy of Sciences; Institute of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Polish Academy of Sciences; Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Polish Geological Institute - National Research Institute
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-5749
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08265-4
• 发表日期: 2024-12-12
• 页码: 397-+
• 关键词: triassic-jurassic boundary; early diversification; activated-charcoal; origin; perylene; terrestrial; COMPETITION; extinction; assemblage; greenland

摘要

The early radiation of dinosaurs remains a complex and poorly understood evolutionary event(1-4). Here we use hundreds of fossils with direct evidence of feeding to compare trophic dynamics across five vertebrate assemblages that record this event in the Triassic-Jurassic succession of the Polish Basin (central Europe). Bromalites, fossil digestive products, increase in size and diversity across the interval, indicating the emergence of larger dinosaur faunas with new feeding patterns. Well-preserved food residues and bromalite-taxon associations enable broad inferences of trophic interactions. Our results, integrated with climate and plant data, indicate a stepwise increase of dinosaur diversity and ecospace occupancy in the area. This involved (1) a replacement of non-dinosaur guild members by opportunistic and omnivorous dinosaur precursors, followed by (2) the emergence of insect and fish-eating theropods and small omnivorous dinosaurs. Climate change in the latest Triassic(5-7) resulted in substantial vegetation changes that paved the way for ((3) and (4)) an expansion of herbivore ecospace and the replacement of pseudosuchian and therapsid herbivores by large sauropodomorphs and early ornithischians that ingested food of a broader range, even including burnt plants. Finally, (5) theropods rapidly evolved and developed enormous sizes in response to the appearance of the new herbivore guild. We suggest that the processes shown by the Polish data may explain global patterns, shedding new light on the environmentally governed emergence of dinosaur dominance and gigantism that endured until the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.