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Tides: A key environmental driver of osteichthyan evolution and the fish-tetrapod transition?
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Biology, Department of Organismal Biology, Evolution and Developmental Biology. School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, Menai Bridge, UK.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6928-488X
School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, Menai Bridge, UK.
Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Biology, Department of Organismal Biology.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9054-2900
2020 (English)In: Proceedings of the Royal Society. Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, ISSN 1364-5021, E-ISSN 1471-2946, Vol. 476, no 2242, p. 20200355-20200355Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Tides are a major component of the interaction between the marine and terrestrial environments, and thus play an important part in shaping the environmental context for the evolution of shallow marine and coastal organisms. Here, we use a dedicated tidal model and palaeogeographic reconstructions from the Late Silurian to early Late Devonian (420 Ma, 400 Ma and 380 Ma, Ma = millions of years ago) to explore the potential significance of tides for the evolution of osteichthyans (bony fish) and tetrapods (land vertebrates). The earliest members of the osteichthyan crown-group date to the Late Silurian, approximately 425 Ma, while the earliest evidence for tetrapods is provided by trackways from the Middle Devonian, dated to approximately 393 Ma, and the oldest tetrapod body fossils are Late Devonian, approximately 373 Ma. Large tidal ranges could have fostered both the evolution of air-breathing organs in osteichthyans to facilitate breathing in oxygen-depleted tidal pools, and the development of weight-bearing tetrapod limbs to aid navigation within the intertidal zones. We find that tidal ranges over 4 m were present around areas of evolutionary significance for the origin of osteichthyans and the fish-tetrapod transition, highlighting the possible importance of tidal dynamics as a driver for these evolutionary processes.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. Vol. 476, no 2242, p. 20200355-20200355
National Category
Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources Evolutionary Biology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-482640DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2020.0355ISI: 000585278200001PubMedID: 33223936OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-482640DiVA, id: diva2:1690105
Funder
NERC - the Natural Environment Research Council, NE/I030224/1Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Wallenberg ScholarAvailable from: 2022-08-24 Created: 2022-08-24 Last updated: 2022-09-16Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Novel approaches to the environments and ecosystems of the fish-tetrapod transition
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Novel approaches to the environments and ecosystems of the fish-tetrapod transition
2022 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The fish-tetrapod transition is one of the most important evolutionary events in Earth’s history, giving rise to terrestrial vertebrates around 390 million years ago. It set the stage for a series of evolutionary events that ultimately resulted in modern-day terrestrial vertebrates including ourselves. The fish-tetrapod transition occurred during the Middle Palaeozoic and although it has been the subject of intense study over the last century, many questions remain unanswered. In this thesis, novel techniques were used to help elucidate certain aspects of the fish-tetrapod transition. The first project sought to use numerical tidal simulations to test the premise of a hypothesis that large tides occurred during the Middle Palaeozoic and acted as a driver for the evolution of lungs and limbs. The simulations produced for the Late Silurian-Late Devonian revealed unusually large tides during the Late Silurian, thus the origin of lungs, supporting the hypothesis that deoxygenated tidal pools could have been the setting for this evolutionary step. The following three projects used propagation phase-contrast synchrotron microtomography (PPC-SRμCT) to analyse new tetrapod material from the terminal Famennian (latest Devonian) and coprolite material from the earliest Tournaisian of Greenland (earliest Carboniferous), spanning a mass extinction event (the Hangenberg crisis) believed to have impacted early tetrapod diversity. Spectacular data sets were generated using this technique, with analysis of the tetrapod material revealing the presence of new taxa, making East Greenland home to the greatest known diversity of tetrapods in the world during the Devonian. Synchrotron scanning allowed for the accurate determination of coprolite morphotypes from a post-Hangenberg crisis lake deposit, revealing greater diversity among the coprolites compared with vertebrate body fossil taxa and thus demonstrating that the fauna contained additional taxa not captured by the body fossil record. Most of the large coprolites are non-spiral and were probably produced by a large aquatic tetrapod. One large coprolite is spiral and is postulated to have been produced by a chondrichthyan. Virtual reconstructions of several coprolites were generated using the scan data. The largest coprolites were full of actinopterygian and acanthodian remains, showing that the probable tetrapod was a proficient aquatic predator. Another large coprolite contained remains of two new body fossil taxa; an actinopterygian and small tetrapod. The coprolite data challenge our initial interpretation of a low-diversity lake fauna, revealing instead a complex ecosystem immediately after a major mass extinction event. Tetrapods and chondrichthyans appear to have been the apex predators in this ecosystem. This thesis demonstrates the capabilities of two novel analytical techniques, tidal simulation and synchrotron microtomography, to uncover previously inaccessible information about the fish-tetrapod transition and its environmental-ecological context.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2022. p. 57
Series
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology, ISSN 1651-6214 ; 2182
Keywords
fish-tetrapod transition, synchrotron scanning, tides, coprolites, Carboniferous
National Category
Evolutionary Biology Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-482647 (URN)978-91-513-1581-2 (ISBN)
Public defence
2022-10-13, Ekmansalen, Evolutionsbiologiskt centrum,, Norbyvägen 14, Uppsala, 13:25 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2022-09-22 Created: 2022-08-24 Last updated: 2022-09-22

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Byrne, HannahAhlberg, Per

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