The importance of neutral over niche processes in structuring Ediacaran early animal communities

Mitchell, Emily G.; Harris, Simon; Kenchington, Charlotte G.; Vixseboxse, Philip; Roberts, Lucy; Clark, Catherine; Dennis, Alexandra; Liu, Alexander G.; Wilby, Philip R.; Williams, John. 2019 The importance of neutral over niche processes in structuring Ediacaran early animal communities. Ecology Letters, 22 (12). 2028-2038. 10.1111/ele.13383

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.13383

Abstract/Summary

The relative influence of niche vs. neutral processes in ecosystem dynamics is an on‐going debate, but the extent to which they structured the earliest animal communities is unknown. Some of the oldest known metazoan‐dominated paleocommunities occur in Ediacaran age (~ 565 million years old) strata in Newfoundland, Canada and Charnwood Forest, UK. These comprise large and diverse populations of sessile organisms that are amenable to spatial point process analyses, enabling inference of the most likely underlying niche or neutral processes governing community structure. We mapped seven Ediacaran paleocommunities using LiDAR, photogrammetry and a laser line probe. We found that neutral processes dominate these paleocommunities, with niche processes exerting limited influence, in contrast with the niche‐dominated dynamics of modern marine ecosystems. The dominance of neutral processes suggests that early metazoan diversification may not have been driven by systematic adaptations to the local environment, but instead may have resulted from stochastic demographic differences.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1111/ele.13383
ISSN:	1461-023X
Date made live:	06 Dec 2019 16:08 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/526137

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1111/ele.13383

ISSN:

1461-023X

Date made live:

06 Dec 2019 16:08 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/526137