Poster Number 172
See more from this Division: General Discipline Sessions
See more from this Session: Paleontology (Posters) II - Paleoecology, Taphonomy, and Traces
Abstract:
Here, we examine the utility of existing museum collections for addressing the escalation hypothesis using the Plio-Pleistocene history of interaction between members of the Strombus alatus species complex and their shell-crushing predators in Florida. Antipredatory traits of this gastropod group hypothesized to reduce the effectiveness of shell-crushing predators include: large body size and thick and ornamented (knobbed) shells. We quantified temporal trends of these morphological traits, as well as the frequency of repair scars resulting from unsuccessful predatory attacks, for 62 samples (25 new field samples and 37 existing museum samples). Sample sizes ranged between 26-364 and 20-199 for field and museum samples, respectively. Field samples were collected by intensive unselective sampling of outcrop surfaces. Preliminary comparisons between field and museum samples suggest that the latter faithfully captures the same temporal trends in Strombus antipredatory traits, as well as the frequency of shell repair, that new field samples yield. Future work will concentrate on the utility of museum samples in this system as reliable sources of information to estimate the range of spatial variability of morphological traits and predation indices in tests of the escalation hypothesis.
See more from this Division: General Discipline Sessions
See more from this Session: Paleontology (Posters) II - Paleoecology, Taphonomy, and Traces