Sea surface temperature contributes to marine crocodylomorph evolution

Jeremy E. Martin (), Romain Amiot, Christophe Lécuyer and Michael J. Benton
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Jeremy E. Martin: School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol
Romain Amiot: UMR 5276 CNRS, Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon, Terre, Planètes et Environnement, ENS de Lyon et Université de Lyon
Christophe Lécuyer: UMR 5276 CNRS, Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon, Terre, Planètes et Environnement, ENS de Lyon et Université de Lyon
Michael J. Benton: School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract During the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, four distinct crocodylomorph lineages colonized the marine environment. They were conspicuously absent from high latitudes, which in the Mesozoic were occupied by warm-blooded ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Despite a relatively well-constrained stratigraphic distribution, the varying diversities of marine crocodylomorphs are poorly understood, because their extinctions neither coincided with any major biological crises nor with the advent of potential competitors. Here we test the potential link between their evolutionary history in terms of taxic diversity and two abiotic factors, sea level variations and sea surface temperatures (SST). Excluding Metriorhynchoidea, which may have had a peculiar ecology, significant correlations obtained between generic diversity and estimated Tethyan SST suggest that water temperature was a driver of marine crocodylomorph diversity. Being most probably ectothermic reptiles, these lineages colonized the marine realm and diversified during warm periods, then declined or became extinct during cold intervals.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5658

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