| Title |
Rapid recovery of Patagonian plant–insect associations after the end-Cretaceous extinction
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Nature Ecology & Evolution, November 2016
|
| DOI | 10.1038/s41559-016-0012 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Michael P. Donovan, Ari Iglesias, Peter Wilf, Conrad C. Labandeira, N. Rubén Cúneo |
| Abstract |
The Southern Hemisphere may have provided biodiversity refugia after the Cretaceous/Palaeogene (K/Pg) mass extinction. However, few extinction and recovery studies have been conducted in the terrestrial realm using well-dated macrofossil sites that span the latest Cretaceous (late Maastrichtian) and early Palaeocene (Danian) outside western interior North America (WINA). Here, we analyse insect-feeding damage on 3,646 fossil leaves from the latest Maastrichtian and three time slices of the Danian in Chubut, Patagonia, Argentina (palaeolatitude approximately 50° S). We test the southern refugial hypothesis and the broader hypothesis that the extinction and recovery of insect herbivores, a central component of terrestrial food webs, differed substantially from WINA at locations far south of the Chicxulub impact structure in Mexico. We find greater insect-damage diversity in Patagonia than in WINA during both the Maastrichtian and Danian, indicating a previously unknown insect richness. As in WINA, the total diversity of Patagonian insect damage decreased from the Cretaceous to the Palaeocene, but recovery to pre-extinction levels occurred within approximately 4 Myr compared with approximately 9 Myr in WINA. As for WINA, there is no convincing evidence for survival of any of the diverse Cretaceous leaf miners in Patagonia, indicating a severe K/Pg extinction of host-specialized insects and no refugium. However, a striking difference from WINA is that diverse, novel leaf mines are present at all Danian sites, demonstrating a considerably more rapid recovery of specialized herbivores and terrestrial food webs. Our results support the emerging idea of large-scale geographic heterogeneity in extinction and recovery from the end-Cretaceous catastrophe. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 82 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 14 | 17% |
| Japan | 8 | 10% |
| United Kingdom | 6 | 7% |
| Argentina | 3 | 4% |
| Netherlands | 2 | 2% |
| France | 2 | 2% |
| Spain | 2 | 2% |
| Australia | 1 | 1% |
| Hong Kong | 1 | 1% |
| Other | 6 | 7% |
| Unknown | 37 | 45% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 54 | 66% |
| Scientists | 23 | 28% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 5 | 6% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 108 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 2 | 2% |
| Brazil | 1 | <1% |
| Italy | 1 | <1% |
| Canada | 1 | <1% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 102 | 94% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Researcher | 24 | 22% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 20 | 19% |
| Student > Master | 11 | 10% |
| Student > Bachelor | 9 | 8% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 7 | 6% |
| Other | 18 | 17% |
| Unknown | 19 | 18% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Earth and Planetary Sciences | 30 | 28% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 30 | 28% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 9 | 8% |
| Environmental Science | 7 | 6% |
| Social Sciences | 2 | 2% |
| Other | 6 | 6% |
| Unknown | 24 | 22% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 508. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 November 2023.
All research outputs
#51,141
of 25,654,806 outputs
Outputs from Nature Ecology & Evolution
#143
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#1,043
of 319,366 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature Ecology & Evolution
#2
of 12 outputs
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