Saturday, October 11, 2025
Science
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag
No Result
View All Result
Home Science News Marine

Ancient marine animal had inventive past despite being represented by few species, new study finds

July 25, 2024
in Marine
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Fig 1
66
SHARES
603
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
ADVERTISEMENT

The findings, published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, sheds light on some core principles of the evolution of modern biodiversity.

Fig 1

Credit: Zhen Guo

The findings, published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, sheds light on some core principles of the evolution of modern biodiversity.

In current oceans, molluscs such as clams, oysters, and snails are hugely diverse, with over 50,000 species, whereas brachiopods are rare by comparison with only 394 species known. But this was not always the case. The team have found that brachiopods were evolving new shell shapes and ecological behaviours following the end-Permian mass extinction which compromised their numbers.

“In the Palaeozoic, from 540 to 250 million years ago, brachiopods ruled the seabed,” said Dr Zhen Guo of the China University of Geosciences, who led the study. “Brachiopods are sometimes called lamp shells, and they generally sit on the sea floor, filtering tiny food particles from seawater. Most of them are quite small–you could hold twenty of them in your hands; but others were big and thick-shelled and lived a long time. Their shells were anything from circular to widely stretched and they had either smooth shells or carried deep ridges and troughs.”

“The brachiopods were hit very hard by the end-Permian mass extinction 252 million years ago,” said Professor Michael Benton of the University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, a collaborator. “The group could have disappeared completely, and indeed from that point, molluscs just became more and more successful. For a long time, it was thought that the brachiopods remained rare because the survivors were stuck in just a few modes of life.”

Dr Tom Stubbs of the Open University added: “In fact, the post-extinction brachiopods were innovating and trying new modes of life. One group, the terebratulids, were diversifying their body shapes and ecological functions from the end of the Permian to the present day, but their diversity did not increase.”

“This was quite unexpected,” said Professor Zhong-Qiang Chen of the China University of Geosciences. “Brachiopods were far from failures after the end-Permian extinction. They were evolving in new directions and exploring new modes of life, just as the molluscs were at the same time. But this did not turn into evolutionary success in terms of the numbers of species. Despite their bursts of evolution in form and function, they could not spread widely, and the exact reason remains unclear.”

The new study is based on analysis of a database of more than 1000 genera of brachiopods from the past 250 million years. For each genus, the analysts recorded dozens of measurements of the overall shape of the shells, their external sculpture, and internal anatomy. These features were analysed together to provide measurements of overall diversity of shapes for each major brachiopod group at each point in time. This measure of ‘diversity of shape’, usually called disparity, could then be compared from point to point in time to show a measure of shape innovation, and it can be compared with counts of the numbers of species or genera through the same time spans.

“Our study took a huge amount of effort,” concluded Zhen Guo. “But it’s important to understand modern biodiversity in terms of the processes that lie behind it.

“If we simply look at modern brachiopods, we have no understanding of their rich past history and how innovative they have been in evolutionary terms. But our discovery that disparity and diversity are decoupled in brachiopod history is new and unexpected. Brachiopods were pretty inventive in evolving new shell forms, but it did not translate into many new species.”

 

The paper:

‘Morphological innovation did not drive diversification in Mesozoic–Cenozoic brachiopods’ by Zhen Guo, Michael J. Benton, Thomas L. Stubbs, and Zhong-Qiang Chen. Nature Ecology & Evolution doi: 10.1038/s41559-024-02491-9. Read the paper here.



Journal

Nature Ecology & Evolution

Method of Research

Systematic review

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Morphological innovation did not drive diversification in Mesozoic–Cenozoic brachiopods

Article Publication Date

25-Jul-2024

Share26Tweet17
Previous Post

Quantum sensor for the atomic world developed through international scientific collaboration

Next Post

4D Medicine raises £3.4 million for unique biomaterial platform

Related Posts

blank
Marine

Microscopic Architects, Massive Climate Influence: Scientists Propose October 10 as International Coccolithophore Day

October 10, 2025
blank
Marine

How Ascension’s Shark Challenges Offer New Insights to Advance Conservation Efforts

October 10, 2025
blank
Marine

Rising Climate Change Could Amplify Oceanic Neurotoxin Spread, Study Finds

October 9, 2025
blank
Marine

Benchmarking US Wastewater Emissions for Targeted Cuts

October 9, 2025
blank
Marine

Expanding Methanogens’ Role in Wastewater Electron Transfer

October 9, 2025
blank
Marine

North American Ice Sheets Triggered Major Sea-Level Rise at Last Ice Age’s End

October 9, 2025
Next Post

4D Medicine raises £3.4 million for unique biomaterial platform

  • Mothers who receive childcare support from maternal grandparents show more parental warmth, finds NTU Singapore study

    Mothers who receive childcare support from maternal grandparents show more parental warmth, finds NTU Singapore study

    27565 shares
    Share 11023 Tweet 6889
  • University of Seville Breaks 120-Year-Old Mystery, Revises a Key Einstein Concept

    972 shares
    Share 389 Tweet 243
  • Bee body mass, pathogens and local climate influence heat tolerance

    647 shares
    Share 259 Tweet 162
  • Researchers record first-ever images and data of a shark experiencing a boat strike

    514 shares
    Share 206 Tweet 129
  • Groundbreaking Clinical Trial Reveals Lubiprostone Enhances Kidney Function

    481 shares
    Share 192 Tweet 120
Science

Embark on a thrilling journey of discovery with Scienmag.com—your ultimate source for cutting-edge breakthroughs. Immerse yourself in a world where curiosity knows no limits and tomorrow’s possibilities become today’s reality!

RECENT NEWS

  • How ECMO Cannulation Shapes Hemodynamics and Hemolysis Risks
  • Aligned Carbon Nanotube Arrays Revolutionize Terahertz Transistors
  • Targeted Therapeutics: Breakthroughs in Ultrasound Brain Stimulation
  • Exploring Behavior Change Techniques in Mobile Apps

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Athmospheric
  • Biology
  • Blog
  • Bussines
  • Cancer
  • Chemistry
  • Climate
  • Earth Science
  • Marine
  • Mathematics
  • Medicine
  • Pediatry
  • Policy
  • Psychology & Psychiatry
  • Science Education
  • Social Science
  • Space
  • Technology and Engineering

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 5,188 other subscribers

© 2025 Scienmag - Science Magazine

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US

© 2025 Scienmag - Science Magazine

Discover more from Science

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading