Modelling marine ecosystem structure from palaeoecological trait data in the Middle Jurassic Peterborough Member (UK)

Abstract

<p>Reconstructing ancient community assemblages and the ecological relationships between extinct organisms is a major challenge due to the shortcomings of the fossil record. The uncertainty surrounding the life habits of extinct organisms has proven to be a major hurdle for our understanding of the evolution of ecosystem structure through time. One such period of interest is the Mesozoic Marine Revolution (MMR), where escalation is proposed to have driven major changes in marine food webs which led to the establishment of modern marine ecosystem structure. The timing of the MMR is heavily debated, with proposals ranging from an Early Triassic to a Cretaceous/Cenozoic origin. We present a meta-community analysis of the Peterborough Member (Callovian, UK) with the aim of constraining the timing of the MMR. We assigned traits (i.e. body size, feeding mode, motility, tiering) that define interactions in modern systems to all fossil organisms and used rules based on foraging behaviour to model meta-community food web structure. We then compare the modelled Peterborough Member food webs with those of well-constrained modern marine ecosystems to shed light on whether modern marine ecosystem was established by the end of the Middle Jurassic.</p>