TY - JOUR
T1 - Macroevolutionary patterns in the evolutionary radiation of archosaurs (Tetrapoda
T2 - Diapsida)
AU - Brusatte, S.L.
AU - Benton, M.J.
AU - Ruta, M.
AU - Lloyd, G.T.
AU - Wang, Steve C.
N1 - Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2010/9/1
Y1 - 2010/9/1
N2 - The rise of archosaurs during the Triassic and Early Jurassic has been treated as a classic example of an evolutionary radiation in the fossil record. This paper reviews published studies and provides new data on archosaur lineage origination, diversity and lineage evolution, morphological disparity, rates of morphological character change, and faunal abundance during the Triassic-Early Jurassic. The fundamental archosaur lineages originated early in the Triassic, in concert with the highest rates of character change. Disparity and diversity peaked later, during the Norian, but the most significant increase in disparity occurred before maximum diversity. Archosaurs were rare components of Early-Middle Triassic faunas, but were more abundant in the Late Triassic and pre-eminent globally by the Early Jurassic. The archosaur radiation was a drawn-out event and major components such as diversity and abundance were discordant from each other. Crurotarsans (crocodile-line archosaurs) were more disparate, diverse, and abundant than avemetatarsalians (bird-line archosaurs, including dinosaurs) during the Late Triassic, but these roles were reversed in the Early Jurassic. There is no strong evidence that dinosaurs outcompeted or gradually eclipsed crurotarsans during the Late Triassic. Instead, crurotarsan diversity decreased precipitously by the end-Triassic extinction, which helped usher in the age of dinosaurian dominance.
AB - The rise of archosaurs during the Triassic and Early Jurassic has been treated as a classic example of an evolutionary radiation in the fossil record. This paper reviews published studies and provides new data on archosaur lineage origination, diversity and lineage evolution, morphological disparity, rates of morphological character change, and faunal abundance during the Triassic-Early Jurassic. The fundamental archosaur lineages originated early in the Triassic, in concert with the highest rates of character change. Disparity and diversity peaked later, during the Norian, but the most significant increase in disparity occurred before maximum diversity. Archosaurs were rare components of Early-Middle Triassic faunas, but were more abundant in the Late Triassic and pre-eminent globally by the Early Jurassic. The archosaur radiation was a drawn-out event and major components such as diversity and abundance were discordant from each other. Crurotarsans (crocodile-line archosaurs) were more disparate, diverse, and abundant than avemetatarsalians (bird-line archosaurs, including dinosaurs) during the Late Triassic, but these roles were reversed in the Early Jurassic. There is no strong evidence that dinosaurs outcompeted or gradually eclipsed crurotarsans during the Late Triassic. Instead, crurotarsan diversity decreased precipitously by the end-Triassic extinction, which helped usher in the age of dinosaurian dominance.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?partnerID=yv4JPVwI&eid=2-s2.0-79959423632&md5=fcba9e2cc856e6889fb5ddc5aad54d62
U2 - 10.1017/S1755691011020056
DO - 10.1017/S1755691011020056
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79959423632
SN - 1755-6910
VL - 101
SP - 367
EP - 382
JO - Earth and environmental science transactions of the royal society of edinburgh
JF - Earth and environmental science transactions of the royal society of edinburgh
IS - 3-4
ER -