ORCID Profile
0000-0002-5320-7246
Current Organisations
Universität Zürich Paläontologisches Institut und Museum
,
National Heart and Lung Institute
,
Queen's University Belfast
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Publisher: American Thoracic Society
Date: 09-2014
Publisher: American Thoracic Society
Date: 10-2014
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-06-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-017-0223-6
Abstract: The end of the Pliocene marked the beginning of a period of great climatic variability and sea-level oscillations. Here, based on a new analysis of the fossil record, we identify a previously unrecognized extinction event among marine megafauna (mammals, seabirds, turtles and sharks) during this time, with extinction rates three times higher than in the rest of the Cenozoic, and with 36% of Pliocene genera failing to survive into the Pleistocene. To gauge the potential consequences of this event for ecosystem functioning, we evaluate its impacts on functional ersity, focusing on the 86% of the megafauna genera that are associated with coastal habitats. Seven (14%) coastal functional entities (unique trait combinations) disappeared, along with 17% of functional richness (volume of the functional space). The origination of new genera during the Pleistocene created new functional entities and contributed to a functional shift of 21%, but minimally compensated for the functional space lost. Reconstructions show that from the late Pliocene onwards, the global area of the neritic zone significantly diminished and exhibited lified fluctuations. We hypothesize that the abrupt loss of productive coastal habitats, potentially acting alongside oceanographic alterations, was a key extinction driver. The importance of area loss is supported by model analyses showing that animals with high energy requirements (homeotherms) were more susceptible to extinction. The extinction event we uncover here demonstrates that marine megafauna were more vulnerable to global environmental changes in the recent geological past than previously thought.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 22-10-2014
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 19-08-2022
Abstract: Although shark teeth are abundant in the fossil record, their bodies are rarely preserved. Thus, our understanding of the anatomy of the extinct Otodus megalodon remains rudimentary. We used an exceptionally well-preserved fossil to create the first three-dimensional model of the body of this giant shark and used it to infer its movement and feeding ecology. We estimate that an adult O. megalodon could cruise at faster absolute speeds than any shark species today and fully consume prey the size of modern apex predators. A dietary preference for large prey potentially enabled O. megalodon to minimize competition and provided a constant source of energy to fuel prolonged migrations without further feeding. Together, our results suggest that O. megalodon played an important ecological role as a transoceanic superpredator. Hence, its extinction likely had large impacts on global nutrient transfer and trophic food webs.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-06-2023
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.16821
Abstract: For more than three decades, major efforts in s ling and analyzing tree ersity in South America have focused almost exclusively on trees with stems of at least 10 and 2.5 cm diameter, showing highest species ersity in the wetter western and northern Amazon forests. By contrast, little attention has been paid to patterns and drivers of ersity in the largest canopy and emergent trees, which is surprising given these have dominant ecological functions. Here, we use a machine learning approach to quantify the importance of environmental factors and apply it to generate spatial predictions of the species ersity of all trees (dbh ≥ 10 cm) and for very large trees (dbh ≥ 70 cm) using data from 243 forest plots (108,450 trees and 2832 species) distributed across different forest types and biogeographic regions of the Brazilian Amazon. The ersity of large trees and of all trees was significantly associated with three environmental factors, but in contrasting ways across regions and forest types. Environmental variables associated with disturbances, for ex le, the lightning flash rate and wind speed, as well as the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation, tend to govern the ersity of large trees. Upland rainforests in the Guiana Shield and Roraima regions had a high ersity of large trees. By contrast, variables associated with resources tend to govern tree ersity in general. Places such as the province of Imeri and the northern portion of the province of Madeira stand out for their high ersity of species in general. Climatic and topographic stability and functional adaptation mechanisms promote ideal conditions for species ersity. Finally, we mapped general patterns of tree species ersity in the Brazilian Amazon, which differ substantially depending on size class.
Location: Germany
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: Switzerland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Catalina Pimiento.