Shell Composition Has No Net Impact on Large-Scale Evolutionary Patterns in Mollusks

A major suspected bias in the fossil record of skeletonized groups is variation in preservability owing to differences in shell composition. However, despite extensive changes in shell composition over the 500-million-year history of marine bivalves, genus duration and shell composition show few sig...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2005-02, Vol.307 (5711), p.914-917
Main Author: Kidwell, Susan M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Animals
Biological Evolution
Bivalvia
Brackish
Calcite
Calcium Carbonate - analysis
Databases, Factual
Evolution
Evolution (Biology)
Evolutionary biology
Fossils
Genera
Geology
Halogenated diphenyl ethers
Marine
Mineralogy
Mollusca
Mollusca - anatomy & histology
Mollusca - chemistry
Mollusca - classification
Mollusks
Observations
Paleobiology
Paleoecology
Sampling
Scientific Concepts
Shells
Species Specificity
Taphonomy
Taxa
Time Factors
Written composition
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Summary:A major suspected bias in the fossil record of skeletonized groups is variation in preservability owing to differences in shell composition. However, despite extensive changes in shell composition over the 500-million-year history of marine bivalves, genus duration and shell composition show few significant relationships, and of those, virtually all are contrary to bias from preferential loss of highly reactive shell types. Distortion of large-scale temporal patterns in marine bivalves owing to preservability is thus apparently weak or randomly distributed, which increases the likelihood that observed patterns in this and other shelled groups carry a strong biological signal.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1106654