Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Department/Program/Center
Geology and Geography
Abstract
Abstract The closure of the late Neogene interoceanic seaways between the Western Atlantic (WA) and Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP)—commonly referred to as the Central American Seaway—significantly decreased nutrient supply in the WA compared to the TEP. In marine invertebrates, an increase in parental investment is expected to be selectively favored in nutrient‐poor marine environments as prolonged feeding in the plankton becomes less reliable. Here, we examine turritelline gastropods, which were abundant and diverse across this region during the Neogene and serve as important paleoenvironmental proxies, and test whether species exhibit decreased planktotro‐ phy in the WA postclosure as compared to preclosure fossils and extant TEP species. We also test for differences in degree of planktotrophy in extant sister species pairs. Degree of planktotrophy was inferred by measuring the size of protoconchs, the spe‐ cies’ larval shell that represents egg size. Protoconch size was compared between extant postclosure WA and TEP species and preclosure fossil species. To compare extant sister species, we reconstructed the phylogeny of available WA and TEP spe‐ cies using one nuclear (H3) and three mitochondrial markers (12S, 16S, and COI). Compared to the preclosure fossils, protoconch size increased in WA species but re‐ mained the same in the TEP species. In the two extant sister species pairs recovered in the phylogenetic analysis, the WA species are inferred to be nonplanktotrophic while the TEP species are planktotrophic. This suggests that decreased nutrient avail‐ ability and primary productivity in the WA may have driven this change in develop‐ mental mode, and was the primary selective force resulting in postclosure turritelline extinctions.
Digital Commons Citation
Sang, Stephanie; Friend, Dana Suzanne; Allmon, Warren Douglas; and Anderson, Brendan Matthew, "Protoconch Enlargement in Western Atlantic Turritelline Gastropod Species Following the Closure of the Central American Seaway" (2019). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 2104.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/2104
Source Citation
Sang, S., Friend, D. S., Allmon, W. D., & Anderson, B. M. (2019). Protoconch enlargement in Western Atlantic turritelline gastropod species following the closure of the Central American Seaway. Ecology and Evolution, 9(9), 5309–5323. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5120
Comments
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.