Plant and insect herbivore community variation across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary in the Hanna Basin, southeastern Wyoming.

ABSTRACT: Ecosystem function and stability are highly affected by internal and external stressors. Utilizing paleobotanical data gives insight into the evolutionary processes an ecosystem undergoes across long periods of time, allowing for a more complete understanding of how plant and insect herbivore communities are affected by ecosystem imbalance. To study how plant and insect herbivore communities change during times of disturbance, we quantified community turnover across the Paleocene--Eocene boundary in the Hanna Basin, southeastern Wyoming. This particular location is unlike other nearby Laramide basins because it has an abundance of late Paleocene and Eocene coal and carbonaceous shales and paucity of well-developed paleosols, suggesting perpetually high water availability. We sampled approx

SUBMITTER: Azevedo Schmidt LE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6798869 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature