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Climatically driven biogeographic provinces of Late Triassic tropical Pangea

Climatically driven biogeographic provinces of Late Triassic tropical Pangea
Climatically driven biogeographic provinces of Late Triassic tropical Pangea
Although continents were coalesced into the single landmass Pangea, Late Triassic terrestrial tetrapod assemblages are surprisingly provincial. In eastern North America, we show that assemblages dominated by traversodont cynodonts are restricted to a humid 6° equatorial swath that persisted for over 20 million years characterized by “semiprecessional” (approximately 10,000-y) climatic fluctuations reflected in stable carbon isotopes and sedimentary facies in lacustrine strata. More arid regions from 5–20°N preserve procolophonid-dominated faunal assemblages associated with a much stronger expression of approximately 20,000-y climatic cycles. In the absence of geographic barriers, we hypothesize that these variations in the climatic expression of astronomical forcing produced latitudinal climatic zones that sorted terrestrial vertebrate taxa, perhaps by excretory physiology, into distinct biogeographic provinces tracking latitude, not geographic position, as the proto-North American plate translated northward. Although the early Mesozoic is usually assumed to be characterized by globally distributed land animal communities due to of a lack of geographic barriers, strong provinciality was actually the norm, and nearly global communities were present only after times of massive ecological disruptions.
biotic provinciality, cynodontia, orbital forcing, procolophonidae, latitudinal gradient
0027-8424
8972-8977
Whiteside, Jessica H.
5d9ad7aa-eba3-4ad9-9f6f-81be71b6829b
Grogan, Danielle S.
e4f68e36-82df-46de-bdc2-534c723741f0
Olsen, Paul E.
bdbec40b-82ed-41ac-8028-b6c333206f16
Kent, Dennis V.
8d441507-6a10-4db7-8d28-db17ccb9fb69
Whiteside, Jessica H.
5d9ad7aa-eba3-4ad9-9f6f-81be71b6829b
Grogan, Danielle S.
e4f68e36-82df-46de-bdc2-534c723741f0
Olsen, Paul E.
bdbec40b-82ed-41ac-8028-b6c333206f16
Kent, Dennis V.
8d441507-6a10-4db7-8d28-db17ccb9fb69

Whiteside, Jessica H., Grogan, Danielle S., Olsen, Paul E. and Kent, Dennis V. (2011) Climatically driven biogeographic provinces of Late Triassic tropical Pangea. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (22), 8972-8977. (doi:10.1073/pnas.1102473108).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Although continents were coalesced into the single landmass Pangea, Late Triassic terrestrial tetrapod assemblages are surprisingly provincial. In eastern North America, we show that assemblages dominated by traversodont cynodonts are restricted to a humid 6° equatorial swath that persisted for over 20 million years characterized by “semiprecessional” (approximately 10,000-y) climatic fluctuations reflected in stable carbon isotopes and sedimentary facies in lacustrine strata. More arid regions from 5–20°N preserve procolophonid-dominated faunal assemblages associated with a much stronger expression of approximately 20,000-y climatic cycles. In the absence of geographic barriers, we hypothesize that these variations in the climatic expression of astronomical forcing produced latitudinal climatic zones that sorted terrestrial vertebrate taxa, perhaps by excretory physiology, into distinct biogeographic provinces tracking latitude, not geographic position, as the proto-North American plate translated northward. Although the early Mesozoic is usually assumed to be characterized by globally distributed land animal communities due to of a lack of geographic barriers, strong provinciality was actually the norm, and nearly global communities were present only after times of massive ecological disruptions.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 13 May 2011
Published date: 2011
Keywords: biotic provinciality, cynodontia, orbital forcing, procolophonidae, latitudinal gradient
Organisations: Paleooceanography & Palaeoclimate

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 354697
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/354697
ISSN: 0027-8424
PURE UUID: 1ce1dc2d-4d9f-4ddd-9f49-8c9c5df37291

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Date deposited: 17 Jul 2013 13:25
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 14:23

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Contributors

Author: Danielle S. Grogan
Author: Paul E. Olsen
Author: Dennis V. Kent

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