Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-c9gpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T06:39:23.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Long survival of “living fossils” with low taxonomic diversities in an evolving food web

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Katsuhiko Yoshida
Katsuhiko Yoshida*
Affiliation:
Environmental Biology Division, National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan. E-mail: kyoshida@nies.go.jp
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Living fossils are taxonomic groups surviving for a long time without any remarkable morphological change. Most of them retain low taxonomic diversities. Although some of them have survived in refuges to avoid predators and competitors, not all living fossils live in refuges. The survival of these groups, therefore, should be discussed in the context of biological interaction. I carried out computer simulations of a model food web system, in which each species feeds on others according to its feeding preference. The system evolves via evolution of species. In the simulation, some clades, like “living fossils,” survived for a long time with low species diversities. Such clades consisted of species with low evolutionary rates, which result in high predation pressure and intraclade competition for food. Nevertheless, the clades sustainably utilize prey clades and are consequently provided with sufficient food. In addition, because of the low species diversities of the clades, predators of the clades soon become extinct through lack of food. This study strongly suggests that in an evolving food web system, the low evolutionary rates of living fossils allow the long survival of those groups with low taxonomic diversities.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , Fall 2002 , pp. 464 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Caldarelli, G., Higgs, P. G., and McKane, A. J. 1998. Modelling coevolution in multispecies communities. Journal of Theoretical Biology 193:345–358.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. E., Briand, F., and Newman, C. M. 1990. Community food web, data and theory. Springer, Berlin.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. E., Pimm, S. L., Yodzis, P., and Saldana, J. 1993. Body size of animal predators and animal prey in food webs. Journal of Animal Ecology 62:67–78.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. 1859. On the origin of species by means of natural selection. John Murray, London.Google Scholar
Drossel, B., Higgs, P. G., and McKane, A. J. 2001. The influence of predator-prey population dynamics on the long-term evolution of food web structure. Journal of Theoretical Biology 208:91–107.Google Scholar
Fisher, D. C. 1990. Rate of evolution: “living fossils”. Pp. 152–159in Briggs, D. G. E. and Crowther, P. R., eds. Paleobiology: a synthesis. Blackwell Scientific, Oxford.Google Scholar
Futuyma, D. J. 1986. Evolutionary biology. Sinauer, Sunderland, Mass.Google Scholar
Gardner, M. R., and Ashby, W. R. 1970. Connectance of large dynamic (cybernetic) systems: critical values for stability. Nature 228:784.Google Scholar
Havens, K. E., Bull, L. A., and Smith, J. P. 1996. Food web structure in a subtropical lake ecosystem. Oikos 75:20–32.Google Scholar
Hayami, I., and Hosoda, I. 1988. Fortipecten takahashii, a reclining pectinid from the Pliocene of north Japan. Palaeontology 31:419–444.Google Scholar
Hayami, I., and Kase, T. 1993. Submarine cave bivalvia from the Ryukyu Islands: systematics and evolutionary significance. University Museum, University of Tokyo, Bulletin 35:1–133.Google Scholar
Hofbauer, J., and Sigmund, K. 1988. The theory of evolution and dynamical systems: mathematical aspects of selection. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Huston, M., DeAngelis, D. L., and Post, W. 1988. New computer models unify ecological theory. Biosciences 38:682–691.Google Scholar
Jennings, S., Pinnegar, J. K., Polunin, N. V. C., and Boon, T. W. 2001. Weak cross-species relationships between body size and trophic level belie powerful size-based trophic structuring in fish communities. Journal of Animal Ecology 70:934–944.Google Scholar
Judson, O. P. 1994. The rise of the individual-based model in ecology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9:9–16.Google Scholar
Kase, T., and Hayami, I. 1992. Unique submarine cave mollusc fauna: composition, origin and adaptation. Journal of Molluscan Studies 58:446–449.Google Scholar
Kawata, M., and Toquenaga, Y. 1994. From artificial individuals to global patterns. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9:417–421.Google Scholar
Ludwig, D., and Walters, C. J. 1985. Are age-structured models appropriate for catch-effort data? Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 42:1066–1072.Google Scholar
Martinez, N. D., Hawkins, B. A., and Feifarek, B. P. 1999. Effects of sampling effort on characterization of food-web structure. Ecology 80:1044–1055.Google Scholar
May, R. M. 1972. Will a large complex system be stable? Nature 238:413–414.Google Scholar
McCann, K. S. 2000. The diversity-stability debate. Nature 405:228–233.Google Scholar
Memmott, J., Martinez, N. D., and Cohen, J. E. 2000. Predators, parasitoids and pathogens: species richness, trophic generality and body sizes in a natural food web. Journal of Animal Ecology 69:1–15.Google Scholar
Neubert, M. G., Blumenshine, S. C., Duplisea, D. E., Jonsson, T., and Rashleigh, B. 2000. Body size and food web structure: testing the equiprobability assumption and the cascade model. Oecologia 123:241–251.Google Scholar
Oji, T. 1996. Is predation intensity reduced with increasing depth? Evidence from the west Atlantic stalked crinoid Endoxocrinus parrae (Gervais) and implications for the Mesozoic marine revolution. Paleobiology 22:339–351.Google Scholar
Oji, T., and Okamoto, T. 1994. Arm autotomy and arm branching pattern as anti-predatory adaptation in stalked and stalkless crinoids. Paleobiology 20:27–39.Google Scholar
OrcaLab HP. http://www.orcalab.org/Google Scholar
Pahl-Wostl, C. 1997. Dynamic structure of a food web model: comparison with a food chain model. Ecological Modelling 100:103–123.Google Scholar
Pimm, S. L. 1991. The balance of nature? University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M., Gould, S. J., Schopf, T. J. M., and Simberloff, D. S. 1973. Stochastic models of phylogeny and the evolution of diversity. Journal of Geology 81:525–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoenly, K., Beaver, R. A., and Heumier, T. A. 1991. On the trophic relations of insects: a food-web approach. American Naturalist 137:597–638.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, M. 1997. The effect of habitat size and energy on food web structure: an individual-based cellular automata model. Ecological Modelling 94:299–316.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1979. Macroevolution: pattern and process. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Strathmann, R. R., and Slatkin, M. 1983. The improbability of animal phyla with few species. Paleobiology 9:97–106.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. M., and Townsend, C. R. 1999. The effect of seasonal variation on the community structure and food-web attributes of two streams: implications for food-web science. Oikos 87:75–88.Google Scholar
Tunnicliffe, V. 1992a. Hydrothermal-vent communities of the deep sea. American Scientist 80:336–349.Google Scholar
Tunnicliffe, V. 1992b. The nature and origin of the modern hydrothermal vent fauna. Palaios 7:338–350.Google Scholar
Vermeij, G. J. 1977. The Mesozoic marine revolution: evidence from snails, predators, and grazers. Paleobiology 3:245–258.Google Scholar
Vermeij, G. J. 1987. Evolution and escalation. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.Google Scholar
Vézina, A. F. 1985. Empirical relationship between predator and prey size among terrestrial vertebrate predators. Oecologia 67:555–565.Google Scholar
Ward, P. D. 1992. On Methuselah's trail. John Brockman, New York.Google Scholar
Warren, P. H., and Lawton, J. H. 1987. Invertebrate predator-prey body size relationship: an explanation for upper triangular food webs and patterns in food web structure? Oecologia 74:231–235.Google Scholar
Williams, R. J., and Martinez, N. D. 2000. Simple rule yield complex food webs. Nature 404:180–183.Google Scholar
Yodzis, P. 1980. The connectance of real ecosystems. Nature 284:544–545.Google Scholar