Ecological restructuring of North Tethyan marine vertebrate communities triggered by the end-Cretaceous extinction.

ABSTRACT: The ecological upheavals produced by the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event (K-Pg, -66 Ma) have been mostly studied at large scale with emphasis on clades' diversity dynamics. How this event affected the structure of paleocommunities is comparatively less investigated, especially within large vertebrate clades like fish. Here, we quantified changes in the contribution of elasmobranchs (sharks, skates, rays) and actinopterygians (ray-finned fishes) to the fish community across the K-Pg extinction by analyzing ichthyolith (fossil teeth and denticles) abundance through time. Based on extensive sampling of 20 horizons from two outcrops spanning the K-Pg event in Austria (>4 tons of rock, >9,000 ichthyoliths), we show that the K-Pg event fostered elasmobranch abundance while reducing ac

SUBMITTER: Feichtinger I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12146742 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature