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From obscurity to dominance: Tracking the rapid evolutionary rise of ray-finned fish

By Guest PostAugust 6, 2013Nature, Scienceadaptive radiation, age of fish, backboned animals, darwins comment, devonian era, end devonian extinction, evolutionary biologist, evolutionary rise, fossils from scotland, fouldenia, glaciers, hangenberg extinction, japanese amberjack, john megahan, lauren sallan, long extinct fish, mass extinctions, michael coates, misclassified fouldenia, oceans, post devonian tetrapods, predatory fish, ray finned fish, romers gap, sea levels, shell crushing, styracopterus, tropics, university of chicago, university of michigan, vertebrate species, yellowtail

ANN ARBOR — Mass extinctions, like lotteries, result in a multitude of losers and a few lucky winners. This is the story of one of the winners, a small, shell-crushing predatory fish called Fouldenia, which first appears in the fossil record a mere 11 million years after an extinction that wiped out more than 90 percent of the planet’s vertebrate species.

The extinction that ended the Devonian Era 359 million years ago created opportunities quickly exploited by a formerly rare and unremarkable group of fish that went on to become—in terms of the sheer number of species—the most successful vertebrates (backboned animals) on the planet today: the ray-finned fish. (more…)

Study Proves that One Extinction Leads to Another

By Guest PostAugust 15, 2012Natureafrican plains, aphids, carnivore, ecosystem, extinction, food web, frank van veen, insects, parasitic wasps, predatory fish, predatory species, ripple effect, university of exeter

When a carnivore becomes extinct, other predatory species could soon follow, according to new research.

Scientists have previously put forward this theory, but a University of Exeter team has now carried out the first experiment to prove it.

Published today (15 August 2012) in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, the study shows how the demise of one carnivore species can indirectly cause another to become extinct. The University of Exeter team believes any extinction can create a ripple effect across a food web, with far-reaching consequences for many other animals. (more…)

Insects Scared to Death of Fish

By Guest PostOctober 31, 2011Naturedragonfly, juvenile dragonflies, nonlethal predators, predatory fish

University of Toronto biologists find higher mortality among dragonflies exposed to undue stress

The mere presence of a predator causes enough stress to kill a dragonfly, even when the predator cannot actually get at its prey to eat it, say biologists at the University of Toronto. (more…)

What Triggers Mass Extinctions? Study Shows How Invasive Species Stop New Life

By Guest PostJanuary 3, 2011Sciencealycia stigall, amphibians, archaeostraca, biodiversity loss, bivalve, brachiopods, collapse of earth marine life, crinoids, dunkleosteus, ecosystems, environmental crash, floweria, formation of a mountain range, history of life, invasive species, late devonian, late devonian oceans, leiopteria, leptodesma, lisa boush, mass extinction, new river channel, phylogenetic analysis, predatory crustacean, predatory fish, schizophoria, sea levels, sea lilies, trilobites, vicariance

*Collapse of Earth’s marine life 378 to 375 million years ago holds key*

An influx of invasive species can stop the dominant natural process of new species formation and trigger mass extinction events, according to research results published in the journal PLoS ONE.

The study of the collapse of Earth’s marine life 378 to 375 million years ago suggests that the planet’s current ecosystems, which are struggling with biodiversity loss, could meet a similar fate. (more…)

Tag Archives: predatory fish

From obscurity to dominance: Tracking the rapid evolutionary rise of ray-finned fish

Study Proves that One Extinction Leads to Another

Insects Scared to Death of Fish

What Triggers Mass Extinctions? Study Shows How Invasive Species Stop New Life