Fossil samples archive functional diversity in marine ecosystems: An empirical test from a present-day coastal environment

What is it about?

This study compares living communities with dead skeletal remains accumulating on the sea-floor to explore how well fossils capture functional diversity for a wide range of animal types. We find that dead remains and fossils faithfully record lifestyles, and feeding modes of the living invertebrate community. Death assemblages and fossils also provided an excellent record of trophic structure, despite differences in the number and abundance of species. This suggests that the fossil record can yield robust ecological estimates adequate for assessing ecosystems that pre-date human activities.

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Photo by Danielle Rice on Unsplash

Photo by Danielle Rice on Unsplash

Why is it important?

As global change continues to alter environments, scientists strive to reconstruct what pristine ecosystems looked like to direct conservation efforts. Fossils are the most obvious and widely accessible archive of past ecosystems.