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| Titel |
Experimental analysis of decay biases in the fossil record of lobopodians |
| VerfasserIn |
Duncan Murdock, Sarah Gabbott, Mark Purnell |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250133276
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-13866.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| If fossils are to realize their full potential in reconstructing the tree of life we must understand
how our view of ancient organisms is obscured by taphonomic filters of decay and
preservation. In most cases, processes of decay will leave behind either nothing or only the
most decay resistant body parts, and even in those rare instances where soft tissues are
fossilized we cannot assume that the resulting fossil, however exquisite, represents a faithful
anatomical representation of the animal as it was in life.Recent experiments have shown that
the biases introduced by decay can be far from random; in chordates, for example, the most
phylogenetically informative characters are also the most decay-prone, resulting in
‘stemward slippage’. But how widespread is this phenomenon, and are there other
non-random biases linked to decay? Intuitively, we make assumptions about the
likelihood of different kinds of characters to survive and be preserved, with knock-on
effects for anatomical and phylogenetic interpretations. To what extent are these
assumptions valid? We combine our understanding of the fossil record of lobopodians with
insights from decay experiments of modern onychophorans (velvet worms) to test
these assumptions. Our analysis demonstrates that taphonomically informed tests of
character interpretations have the potential to improve phylogenetic resolution. This
approach is widely applicable to the fossil record – allowing us to ground-truth some of
the assumptions involved in describing exceptionally preserved fossil material. |
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