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A study led by the University of Kansas is a 43 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch. The research is focused on two new fossils of marsupials that inhabit the Pontide region of modern-day Turkey.
"North America because it's a simpler ecosystem," said study co-author Professor K. Christopher Beard.
"Evolutionary biologists have been focusing on Darwin and Wallace independently of their observations on plants and animals living on the Galapagos and the Malay Archipelago, which is modern Indonesia."
According to Professor Beard, however, the lack of a fossil record for animals living on a multimillion-year timeframe has largely been reduced.
"No other ecosystem on the face of the planet from any time period we are finding in the Eocene of Turkey – it's a completely unique mammalian ecosystem much like Madagascar is today."
"But how did this island biota develop over time? You need fossils and time depth to see that. We're able here to study in detail how this evolved island – where did they come from, how did they get there. Once they got there, some of these mammals, we discovered, were able to diversify on the island. Most of the Eocene mammals on the coast of the sea seem to have gotten by the sea or the sea, instead of getting stranded on the island of the Eurasia.
The team found evidence among the Marsupial fossil fossils that distinctive forms of life on the islands are ill-fated in general, given enough time.
"One thing we know for sure is the incredibly interesting and unique Eocene biota that occurred on this island in Turkey," said Professor Beard. "It was eradicated when the island was re-connected to mainland Eurasia and more cosmopolitan animals were driving it to the first time, driving the weird island biota to extinction."
"The message for conservation biology today is that ecosystems are inherently ephemeral on the grand scale of macroevolutionary time. Today, conservation biologists are concerned about many endangered taxa on islands. The ugly truth that the weather is most likely to be extinguished. They're cul-de-sacs of evolution – even though they're wonderful places to study processes of evolution. "
The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.
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by Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
Image Credit: Oscar Sanisidro | University of Kansas
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