Late Jurassic soft‐bodied wood epibionts preserved by bioimmuration

Abstract

While the encrustation of floating driftwood by pseudoplankton has attracted much debate, the utilization of benthic xylic substrata by sessile organisms has received scant attention. Here we record a benthic woodground fauna, including weakly mineralized and entirely soft-bodied taxa, which have been preserved within the cement of an overgrowing oyster. This process, bioimmuration, is ubiquitous in marine hard-substrate communities but is recorded here on a xylic substrate for the first time. Comparison of bioimmured communities will allow investigation of changes in woodground fauna through time and offers the potential for a fuller understanding of the effect of substrate texture on community composition.