Sauropod Food Ecology: Insights from plant-animal co-occurrence, paleobotany, and evolutionary history of the Jurassic conifer Araucaria
Final Report Abstract
The data and results generated in the Second Funding Period of DFG Research Unit 533 confirm the hypothesis that it was highly likely that conifers such as Araucaria and sphenophytes such as Equisetum were major food plants of the sauropod dinosaurs. Along with the Cheirolepidiaceae (an extinct conifer family that was widespread in the Mesozoic), ginkgophytes, and other conifers such as the Podocarpaceae, Cupressaceae, and Pinaceae, Araucaria and Equisetum were accessible, sustaining, and/or preferred sources of food for the sauropods. Less commonly browsed by the sauropods, especially by large, fully grown individuals, would have been forest-dwelling ferns such as Angiopteris and Osmunda. The least frequently eaten plants were probably the cycads and bennettitaleans. It is still unknown how great a role the Mesozoic seed ferns may have played in the diet of these herbivorous dinosaurs. This comparative rating of food plants was based on the integration of new paleobotanical and recent botanical data. This included the coeval occurrence of sauropods and the individual plant groups in global fossil record during the Late Jurassic, with a focus on the co-occurrence of sauropods and a new fossil flora in the dinosaur bonebed in the Morrison Formation of Howe-Stephens Quarry, Wyoming. Recent botanical data consisted the growth habits of the nearest living relatives of these plant groups, their habitat, the amount of biomass produced, and the ability to regrow shoots, branches, and leaves after injury through herbivory. The relative quantities of calories and essential nutrients yielded to herbivores with hindgut fermentation, and consumption of the various plant groups by modern herbivores were also factored into this evaluation.
Publications
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2007. Ernährung und Mobilität von Sauropoden - Informationspotential der Isotopenzusammensetzung von Knochen und Zähnen. Hallesches Jahrbuch für Geowissenschaften, Beiheft, 23: 85-92
Tütken, T., P. M. Sander, J. Hummel, and C. Gee
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2008. Araucaria in Northern Queensland. Newsletter, Friends of the Botanic Gardens Cairns, no. 49, pp. 5-6
Gee, C. T.
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2008. In vitro digestibility of fern and gymnosperm foliage: implications for sauropod feeding ecology ad diet selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, 275: 1015-1021
Hummel, J., C. T. Gee, K.-H. Südekum, P. M. Sander, G. Nogge, and M. Clauss
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2009. Response to: Sauropods kept their heads down. Science 323: 1671-1672
Sander, P. M., A. Christian, and C. T. Gee
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2010. A mosaic of characters in a new whole-plant Araucaria, A. delevoryasii Gee sp. nov., from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming, U.S.A. In: C. T. Gee (ed.), Plants in Mesozoic Time: Innovations, Phylogeny, Ecosystems. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, pp. 67-94
Gee, C. T., and W. D. Tidwell
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2010. Architectural innovation and developmental controls in some Mesozoic gymnosperms. Or why do the leaf crowns in Mesozoic forests look tufted? In: C.T. Gee (ed.), Plants in Mesozoic Time: Innovations, Phylogeny, Ecosystems. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, pp. 5-12
Sussex, I., N. Kerk, and C. T. Gee
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2010. Biology of the sauropod dinosaurs: The evolution of gigantism. Biological Reviews
Sander, P. M., A. Christian, M. Clauss, R. Fechner, C. T. Gee, E.-M. Griebeler, H.-C. Gunga, J. Hummel, H. Mallison, S. F. Perry, H. Preuschoft, O. W. M. Rauhut, K. Remes, T. Tütken, O. Wings, and U. Witzel
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2010. Mesozoic plants and dinosaur herbivory. In: C. T. Gee (ed.), Plants in Mesozoic Time: Innovations, Phylogeny, Ecosystems. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, pp. 331-359
Sander, P. M., C. T. Gee, J. Hummel, and M. Clauss
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2011. Dietary options for the sauropod dinosaurs from an integrated botanical and paleobotanical perspective, pp. 34-56. In: N. Klein, K. Remes, C. T. Gee, and P. M. Sander (eds.), Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: Understanding the Life of Giants. Indiana University Press, Bloomington
Gee, C. T.
