Recognition and interpretation of predatory traces in echinoid skeletons: towards the evolution of predator-prey systems in ecologically important echinoid taxa

海胆是海洋底栖生态系统的重要组成部分。特别是，不规则的echinoid类群clypeasteroids和spatangoids在许多浅水栖息地发挥了重要作用。这些丰富的存款饲养者作为生态系统工程师的循环和通风的上层沉积物，从而创造了一个含氧沉积物的底栖生物。此外，clypeasteroids和spatangoids都是生态上重要的，代表了各种脊椎动物和无脊椎动物的主要食物来源。然而，尽管海胆遗骸具有很高的保存潜力，而且软底环境中的clypeasteroids和spatangoids具有生态重要性，但它们的捕食者-猎物关系仍未得到充分探索。本研究拟对热带和亚热带浅水生境中的海胆群落进行研究，重点研究（1）捕食者和猎物的光谱，（2）捕食者相关的痕迹，（3）捕食者与捕食者之间的关系，（4）捕食者与捕食者之间的关系，（5）捕食者与捕食者之间的关系，（6）捕食者与捕食者之间的关系，（7）捕食者与捕食者之间的关系，（8）捕食者与捕食者之间的关系，（9）捕食者与捕食者之间的关系。以及（3）基于它们在海胆遗骸中留下的痕迹的捕食者种群建模。因此，该项目的一个组成部分是确定、识别和编目捕食者-海胆的相互作用和相关痕迹。这些发现将提高我们解释棘球蚴生态作用的能力，并使我们能够通过这些棘球蚴的地质历史更可靠地研究生物相互作用的进化和宏观生态学方面。此外，由于许多海胆捕食者是神秘的或很少保存为化石，记录的痕迹产生的海胆捕食者可能使我们能够检测到他们的存在，在古代和现代的生态系统。这一基础研究将为最初使用软体动物开发和测试的两个主要概念假设（“升级假设”和“中生代海洋革命假设”）的独立、基于棘突的测试提供方法论基础。

Echinoids are an important ecological component of marine benthic ecosystems. In particular, the irregular echinoid taxa of clypeasteroids and spatangoids play a significant role in many shallow-water habitats. These abundant deposit feeders act as ecosystem engineers by recycling and ventilating the upper sediment layers and thus creating an oxygenated sediments for infaunal organisms. In addition, clypeasteroids and spatangoids are both ecologically important by representing a major food source for diverse vertebrates and invertebrates. However, despite the high preservation potential of echinoid remains and the ecological importance of clypeasteroids and spatangoids in soft-bottom environments, their predator-prey relationships remain underexplored. The limited understanding of echinoid-predator interactions hampers our ability to fully assess their ecological relevance in modern ecosystems and evaluate the importance of biotic interactions through their evolutionary history.The proposed project aims to investigate echinoid communities from shallow-water habitats in tropical and subtropical settings focusing on (1) predator and prey spectra, (2) predator-associated traces, and (3) modeling of predator populations based on traces they leave in the echinoid remains. An integral part of the project is thus the identification, recognition and cataloging of predator-echinoid interactions and associated traces. The gained findings will improve our ability to interpret the ecological role of echinoids and enable us to investigate more reliably the evolutionary and macroecological aspects of biotic interactions through the geological history of these echinoids. Moreover, because many echinoid predators are cryptic or rarely preserve as fossils, recorded traces produced by echinoid predators may allow us to detect their presence in ancient and present-day ecosystems. This basic research will provide a methodological foundation for independent, echinoid-based tests of two major conceptual hypotheses, “Escalation Hypothesis” and “Mesozoic Marine Revolution Hypothesis”, originally developed and tested using mollusks.