Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T14:22:57.750Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Generic longevity in Lower Ordovician trilobites: relation to environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Richard A. Fortey
Richard A. Fortey*
Affiliation:
British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, England
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The longevity of genera living at the edge of the early Ordovician North American plate is related to their position on the former shelf, that is preserved in richly fossiliferous sections of Spitsbergen. Genera which endure for a long period (SO Myr or more) tend to be confined to shallow-water sites associated with algal mounds at the edge of the carbonate platform (illaenid-cheirurid community type) or deep-water sites with low oxygen concentration, and probably beneath the thermocline (olenid community type). The latter includes “conservative” forms that have survived from the Cambrian. The long ranges of the olenid community type are attributed to the adaptation of only a few genera to a highly specific, stressed environment. The endurance of the illaenid-cheirurid genera is due to the persistence of the tropical shelf-edge habitat, with high predictability of resources, to which the Ordovician forms became adapted early on. The nileid community type, which occurred between the platform edge and olenid-bearing environment, was the site of rapid generic turnover and may have been the source for subsequent recruitment into other environments. The inner shelf also had rapid generic replacement, dominated by a single family, the Bathyuridae. Rapidity of evolution in this site may be due to the spatial heterogeneity of the epeiric environment, as in the Devonian phacopids studied by Eldredge (1974).

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , Winter 1980, pp. 24 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Literature Cited

Ashton, J. H. and Rowell, A. J. 1975. Environmental stability and species proliferation in late Cambrian trilobite faunas: a test of the niche variation hypothesis. Paleobiology. 1:161–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bretsky, P. W. and Lorenz, D. M. 1970. Adaptive response to environmental stability: a unifying concept in palaeoecology. Proc. N. Am. Paleontol. Conv. Chicago, 1969 Sect. E. Pp. 522–550.Google Scholar
Chatterton, B. D. E. and Ludvigsen, R. 1976. Silicified Middle Ordovician trilobites from the South Nahanni River area, district of Mackenzie, Canada. Palaeontographica Abt. A 154, 1–106, 22 pls.Google Scholar
Dayton, P. K. and Hessler, R. R. 1972. Role of biological disturbance in maintaining diversity in the deep sea. Deep Sea Res. 19:199–208.Google Scholar
Dean, W. T. 1971–77. Trilobites of the Chair of Kildare Limestone (Upper Ordovician) of Eastern Ireland. Paleontogr. Soc. (Monogr.).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eldredge, N. 1974. Stability, diversity and speciation in Paleozoic epeiric seas. J. Paleontol. 48:540–548.Google Scholar
Fortey, R. A. 1974. The Ordovician trilobites of Spitsbergen. I. Olenidae. Skr. Norsk Polarinst. 160:1–129.Google Scholar
Fortey, R. A. 1975. Early Ordovician trilobite communities. Fossils & Strata. 4:331–352.Google Scholar
Fortey, R. A. 1975a. The Ordovician trilobites of Spitsbergen. II. Asaphidae, Nileidae, Raphiophoridae and Telephinidae of the Valhallfonna Formation. Skr. Norsk Polarinst. 162:1–207.Google Scholar
Fortey, R. A. 1980. The Ordovician trilobites of Spitsbergen. III. Remaining trilobites of the Valhallfonna Formation. Skr. Norsk Polarinst. 172:1–161.Google Scholar
Fortey, R. A. and Owens, R. M. 1978. Early Ordovician stratigraphy and faunas of the Carmarthen district, Dyfed, South Wales. Bull. Brit. Mus. Nat. Hist. Geol. 30:225–294.Google Scholar
Harland, W. B. and Francis, E. H. 1971. The Phanerozoic Time Scale: a Supplement. Spec. Pub. Geol. Soc. London 5.Google Scholar
Holling, C. S. 1973. Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 4:1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, J. B. C. 1974. Biogeographic consequences of eurytopy and stenotopy among marine bivalves and their evolutionary significance. Am. Nat. 108:541–560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klopfer, P. and MacArthur, R. H. 1961. On the causes of tropical species diversity: niche overlap. Am. Nat. 95:223–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, P. D. 1972. New trilobites from the Silurian of north-east Greenland, with a note on trilobite faunas in pure limestones. Palaeontology. 15:336–364.Google Scholar
Margalef, R. 1969. Diversity and Stability: A practical proposal and a model of interdependence. Brookhaven Symp. Biol. 22:25–37.Google Scholar
Menge, B. A. and Sutherland, J. P. 1976. Species diversity gradients: synthesis of the roles of predation, competition and temporal heterogeneity. Am. Nat. 110:351–369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owens, R. M. 1973. British Ordovician and Silurian Proetidae (Trilobita). Palaeontogr. Soc. (Monogr.)1–98, 15 pls.Google Scholar
Peters, R. H. 1976. Tautology in evolution and ecology. Am. Nat. 110:1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, R. J. 1972. Fossils from the Ordovician bioherm at Meiklejohn Peak, Nevada. Prof. Pap. U.S. Geol. Surv. 685:1–47, 18 pls.Google Scholar
Ross, R. J., Jaanusson, V., and Friedman, I. 1975. Lithology and origin of Middle Ordovician mudmound at Meiklejohn Peak, southern Nevada. Prof. Pap. U.S. Geol. Surv. 871:1–48.Google Scholar
Sanders, H. L. 1968. Marine benthic diversity, a comparative study. Am. Nat. 102:243–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schopf, T. J. M., Raup, D. M., Gould, S. J., and Simberloff, D. S. 1975. Genomic versus morphologic rates of evolution: influence of morphologic complexity. Paleobiology. 1:63–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, F. C. 1968. Early Middle Ordovician Chazy trilobites of New York. Mem. N.Y. St. Mus. Sci. Serv. 17:1–163.Google Scholar
Shaw, F. C. and Fortey, R. A. 1977. Middle Ordovician trilobites and facies in North America. Geol. Mag. 114:409–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strong, D., McCoy, E., and Rey, J. 1977. Time and the number of herbivore species. The pests of sugarcane. Ecology. 58:167–175.Google Scholar
Taylor, M. E. 1977. Late Cambrian of Western North America: trilobite biofacies, environmental significance, and biostratigraphic implications. Pp. 397–425. In: Kauffman, E. G. and Hazel, J. E., eds. Concepts and Methods of Biostratigraphy. Stroudsburg.Google Scholar
Valentine, J. W. 1973. Evolutionary Paleoecology of the Marine Biosphere. 511 pp. Prentice-Hall; New Jersey.Google Scholar
Warburg, E. 1925. The trilobites of the Leptaena limestone in Dalarne, with a discussion of the zoological position and classification of the Trilobita. Bull. Geol. Inst. Univ. Upsala 17, i–viii, 1–446, 11 pls.Google Scholar
Whittington, H. B. 1950. British trilobites of the family Harpidae. Palaeontogr. Soc. (Monogr.) i–ii, 1–55, 7 pls.Google Scholar
Whittington, H. B. 1963. Middle Ordovician trilobites from Lower Head, Western Newfoundland. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard. 120:1–118.Google Scholar
Whittington, H. B. and Hughes, C. P. 1972. Ordovician geography and faunal provinces deduced from trilobite distribution. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B 263:235–278.Google Scholar