Time‐averaging and fidelity of modern death assemblages: building a taphonomic foundation for conservation palaeobiology
Time‐averaging and fidelity of modern death assemblages: building a taphonomic foundation for conservation palaeobiology
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现代死亡组合的时间平均和保真度：为古生物学保护奠定埋藏学基础
DOI：
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发表时间：
2013
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
S. Kidwell
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
S. Kidwell
当今的生态系统面临着越来越大的压力，人类在许多层面上占据主导地位。然而，在缺乏人类活动之前时期的数据的情况下，很难衡量发生了什么变化或丢失以及原因。现实主义埋藏学研究最初是为了了解对深层化石记录的保存控制，现在正在为现代死亡组合作为当今生态系统的历史档案提供见解，从而彻底颠覆埋藏学。本文回顾了过去 20 年关于时间分辨率和时间平均骨骼组合忠实捕获生态信息的能力的工作，主要关注软沉积物海底的软体动物。然后强调了“应用埋藏学”的两个有前途的领域：（1）利用活死不匹配——即观察到的活体动物和同时发生的骨骼遗骸的多样性、物种组成和分布的不一致——来识别最近的人为变化；（2）利用时间平均死亡组合作为了解区域多样性和长期基线的窗口，作为传统活体收集数据的补充或替代。荟萃分析和建模发现，在未改变的栖息地中，群落层面属性的活死差异很大程度上或完全是由生物群落的自然时空变异性的时间平均产生的，时间范围与死亡群落中观察到的贝壳年龄范围一致。时间平均以可预测的方式粗化生物信息的时间和空间分辨率；相比之下，由于贝壳保存、生产和运输的差异而产生的信息埋藏学偏差却出人意料地温和。基础埋藏学研究仍然面临一些挑战，例如完善死亡组合时间分辨率的经验和分析方法；评估渐进式埋葬的决心和忠诚度的命运；并扩大我们对其他群体和环境中骨骼积累动态的理解。我们不应该将受人类影响的地区视为远古时代的不恰当类比而回避它们，而应该利用它们来探索骨骼积累的基本控制，并制定强有力的方案，将时间平均死亡组合纳入保护生物学和环境管理的工具包中。
Ecosystems today are under growing pressure, with human domination at many scales. It is difficult, however, to gauge what has changed or been lost – and why – in the absence of data from periods before human activities. Actualistic taphonomic studies, originally motivated to understand preservational controls on deep‐time fossil records, are now providing insights into modern death assemblages as historical archives of present‐day ecosystems, turning taphonomy on its head. This article reviews the past 20 years of work on the temporal resolution and ability of time‐averaged skeletal assemblages to capture ecological information faithfully, focusing primarily on molluscs from soft‐sediment seafloors. Two promising arenas for ‘applied taphonomy’ are then highlighted: (1) using live‐dead mismatch – that is, observed discordance in the diversity, species composition, and distribution of living animals and co‐occurring skeletal remains – to recognize recent anthropogenic change, and (2) using time‐averaged death assemblages as windows into regional diversity and long‐term baselines, as a supplement or substitute for conventional live‐collected data. Meta‐analysis and modelling find that, in unaltered habitats, live‐dead differences in community‐level attributes can be generated largely or entirely by time‐averaging of natural spatial and temporal variability in living assemblages, on time frames consistent with the range of shell ages observed in death assemblages. Time‐averaging coarsens the temporal and spatial resolution of biological information in predictable ways; by comparison, taphonomic bias of information arising from differential preservation, production and transport of shells is surprisingly modest. Several challenges remain for basic taphonomic research, such as empirical and analytical methods of refining the temporal resolution of death assemblages; assessing the fate of resolution and fidelity with progressive burial; and expanding our understanding of the dynamics of skeletal accumulation in other groups and settings. Rather than shunning human‐impacted areas as inappropriate analogues of the deep past, we should capitalize on them to explore the fundamental controls on skeletal accumulation and to develop robust protocols for bringing time‐averaged death assemblages into the toolkits of conservation biology and environmental management.
第四纪脊椎动物化石记录中物种丰度的决定因素
影响因子：
2.7
作者：
Turvey S
通讯作者：
Turvey S