Global ecomorphological restructuring of dominant marine reptiles prior to the Cretaceous-Palaeogene mass extinction.

ABSTRACT: Mosasaurid squamates were the dominant amniote predators in marine ecosystems during most of the Late Cretaceous. Here, we use a suite of biomechanically rooted, functionally descriptive ratios in a framework adapted from population ecology to investigate how the morphofunctional disparity of mosasaurids evolved prior to the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K/Pg) mass extinction. Our results suggest that taxonomic turnover in mosasaurid community composition from Campanian to Maastrichtian is reflected by a notable global increase in morphofunctional disparity, especially driving the North American record. Ecomorphospace occupation becomes polarized during the Late Maastrichtian, with morphofunctional disparity plateauing in the Southern Hemisphere and decreasing in the Northern Hemisphere. We show

SUBMITTER: MacLaren JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9130788 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature