Diversity dynamics and evolutionary patterns of Carboniferous Bryozoa

• Applicant: Privatdozent Andrej Ernst, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2010 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 179062650

This proposal aims to study diversity dynamics and evolution patterns of bryozoans during the Carboniferous. Bryozoans are among the best-represented macroinvertebrates in the fossil record, because of the presence of a calcareous skeleton in the great majority of species. The Carboniferous bryozoan communities responded to the Late Devonian extinctions by renewed adaptive radiation and rediversification. Their diversity and evolution was influenced by such events as extensive glaciation and building of Pangaea. Bryozoan diversity could have been controlled by different extrinsic factors (climate, availability and quality of habitats, food supply) as well as intrinsic causes (environmental resistance/tolerance, adaptation, protecting, convergence, morphologic specialization etc.). The present study will include a critical species and genus level compilation of the data from the published literature and own taxonomic investigations. The compiled data base will be used to study diversity dynamics as well as rates of taxonomic turnover in bryozoans during the Carboniferous. The data gained will help to answer questions whether the bryozoan diversity during the Carboniferous was controlled by extrinsic or intrinsic factors, what kind of interaction between these factor groups could have existed, and how the bryozoan diversity and evolutionary patterns can be compared with those of other marine animal groups.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants