Autecology: behavoir of individual organisms with their environment
Synecology: ecology of communities of organisms with their environment, including each other

Can attempt to reconstruct "community" structure (note: "communities" seem to epiphenomena rather than entities in the geologic time scale)

• Accuracy of resolution depends on degree of autochthony. Some clues to degree of autochthony:
  • Fossils in normal life position
  • Fossils in articulation
  • Low levels of breakage and abrasion
  • Poorly sorted in terms of size of fossils
  • Low levels of orientation due to currents
• Multiple stratigraphic and/or geographic recurrence of association good indication represents an acutal rather than taphonomic association

Some analogous communities have formed multiple times in Earth history, with similar community structure but different taxonomic composition: reefs, for example.

Taxonomic uniformitarianism: principle behind modern analog approaches to paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Examples:

• Temperature curves based on leaf margins
• Oceanographic reconstructions based on modern analogs in ostracod or foram communities

Some other parameters of the enivornment might be determined by physical or chemical properties of the fossils:

• Carbon or oxygen isotope work on marine microfossils
• Trophic level analysis from isotopes of bones and teeth

Some parameters of interest: temperature, salinity, oxygenation

May also be interested in biotic aspects of paleoenvironment:

• Predator-prey analyses, with implications for thermometabolism
• Community succession in reefs and other communities
• Large-scale changes in communities:
  • Cambrian Substrate Revolution
  • Mid-Mesozoic Marine Revolution
  • Sepkoski's Evolutionary Faunas

To Syllabus.

Last modified: 22 August 2008