Primitive life habits and adaptive significance of the pelecypod form

Abstract

The typical pelecypod form, long thought to be primitively adaptive to burrowing, is likely to have been originally adaptive to a suspension feeding, epifaunal, possibly crawling mode of life. At small body size (< 1 cm), pelecypods possessing typical burrowing features can function as epifaunal crawlers. Pelecypods arose at small body sizes and are part of a molluscan evolutionary sequence in which relative size of the mantle cavity increased to accommodate a few large gills specialized for suspension feeding.Acquisition of a bivalved shell by ancestral epifaunal suspension feeders may have offered protection from sediment clogging on soft bottoms, additional control over the direction, volume, and rate of water flow through the mantle cavity, more effective protection from predators, and better short-term control of the internal environment. Consideration of invertebrate groups analogous to the pelecypods (Branchiopoda, Cladocera, Ostracoda, Phyllocarida) support the view that the bivalve condition is primarily an adaptation for suspension feeding and predator avoidance in benthic environments.The earliest known pelecypod, Fordilla troyensis Barrande, was not necessarily infaunal just because it had features similar to much larger, Recent burrowers. The size, shell morphology and environment of preservation of F. troyensis all suggest that it is reasonable to envision Cambrian pelecypods as epifaunal suspension feeders, possibly crawling on sedimentary bottoms. Moreover, the sudden Ordovician expansion of pelecypods and increase in individual size may be explained as a result of invasion of the infaunal adaptive zone.