Title
Palaeoclimate ocean conditions shaped the evolution of corals and their skeletons through deep time
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-1-2020
Abstract
Identifying how past environmental conditions shaped the evolution of corals and their skeletal traits provides a framework for predicting their persistence and that of their non-calcifying relatives under impending global warming and ocean acidification. Here we show that ocean geochemistry, particularly aragonite-calcite seas, drives patterns of morphological evolution in anthozoans (corals, sea anemones) by examining skeletal traits in the context of a robust, time-calibrated phylogeny. The lability of skeletal composition among octocorals suggests a greater ability to adapt to changes in ocean chemistry compared with the homogeneity of the aragonitic skeleton of scleractinian corals. Pulses of diversification in anthozoans follow mass extinctions and reef crises, with sea anemones and proteinaceous corals filling empty niches as tropical reef builders went extinct. Changing environmental conditions will likely diminish aragonitic reef-building scleractinians, but the evolutionary history of the Anthozoa suggests other groups will persist and diversify in their wake.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
Nature ecology & evolution
First Page
1531
Last Page
1538
Recommended Citation
Quattrini, A. M., Rodríguez, E., Faircloth, B. C., Cowman, P. F., Brugler, M. R., Farfan, G. A., Hellberg, M. E., & Kitahara, M. V. (2020). Palaeoclimate ocean conditions shaped the evolution of corals and their skeletons through deep time. Nature ecology & evolution, 4 (11), 1531-1538. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01291-1