Ecomorphospace occupation of large herbivorous dinosaurs from Late Jurassic through to Late Cretaceous time in North America.

ABSTRACT: Following the Late Jurassic, megaherbivore communities in North America undergo a dramatic turnover in faunal composition: sauropods decline to the point of becoming relatively minor components of ecosystems, stegosaurs become extinct, and hadrosaurids, ceratopsids and ankylosaurs rise in diversity and abundance. Although a variety of causes have been proposed to account for the dramatic decrease in sauropod diversity following the Late Jurassic and could have also been applicable to the disappearance of stegosaurs, the potential for competitive replacement of sauropods by hadrosauroids as an explanation has been previously dismissed due to morphological differences without further investigation. Using twelve ecomorphological correlates of the skull, this study provides a preliminary inves

SUBMITTER: Wyenberg-Henzler T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9009330 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature