A lithostratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental framework for the late Miocene El Caracolar section (Granada Basin, Betic Cordillera, Spain) and description of decapod crustaceans
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Marine transgression
Macrofossil
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Neogene
Paleoecology
Despite a wealth of literature on the antics and biology of hermit crabs, the stratinomic significance of these animals has scarcely been examined. Not only are the crabs important in ecology and paleoecology, but they are also instrumental in determining the condition and final burial sites of innumerable mollusc shells. The structure of molluscan taphocoenoses is altered thereby and is subject to misinterpretation in the fossil record. Hermit crabs in Georgia and other coastal settings demonstrate marked preferences for certain types of gastropod shells. Although specific shell selections are dictated partly by the diversity and abundance of available shells and may vary from one crab population to another, the invariable result is (1) a concentration of environmentally mixed shells within the crab population and (2) a modification of detrital shell assemblages otherwise governed by physical processes. Comparable biases may have been introduced as long ago as the Early Jurassic, when paguroid crabs appeared.
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Marine Pliocene mollusks are abundant in sand deposits at Langenboom, the Netherlands. Three samples, totaling nearly 15,000 mollusks, were identified and assessed for drill-hole predation marks. An approach commonly used by researchers was performed to calculate a drill-hole predation intensity based on bivalves with complete margins only. This method, however, introduced a significant taphonomic bias: an assemblage of bivalve drill-hole predation intensity of ∼30% was found for complete valves only, compared to an assemblage of bivalve drill-hole predation intensity of ∼20% based on complete and fragmented valves with more than 50% of the hinge preserved. This bias was caused by a significant change in the faunal composition when fragmented valves, primarily broken by compaction, were taken into account. For assemblages with many broken valves, this bias should be estimated to be comparable to drill-hole predation intensities based on pristine collections. This bias becomes especially important in studies on evolutionary escalation through time. Naticids appeared to be the predominant drill-hole-producing predator (only one definite drill hole was found) based on drill-hole morphology and the gastropod composition. Muricid predators were absent, probably because most bivalve prey is infaunal.
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Different degrees of transport and reworking impart different physical characteristics to fossiliferous assemblages (= different taphonomic grades) and reflect different time scales of deposition and accumulation. Well-preserved fossil assemblages (= high taphonomic grade) generally reflect accumulation over short time spans; as taphonomic grade decreases, the time represented by the accumulation of the fossiliferous assemblage increases. The taphonomic grade of a fossil assemblage changes in one direction (high to low) with time, and provides a measure against which paleoecologists can evaluate other aspects of the fauna that may fluctuate through time. Beds of the same taphonomic grade reflect similar depositional histories. Characterizing faunas in terms of their taphonomic grade provides a means by which temporally and spatially disparate faunas may be compared.
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