10.5061/DRYAD.CJSXKSN54
Schwarzhans, Werner
0000-0003-4842-7989
Natural History Museum of Denmark
Carnevale, Giorgio
University of Turin
Data from: The rise to dominance of lanternfishes (Teleostei, Myctophidae)
in the oceanic ecosystems: a paleontological perspective
Dryad
dataset
2020
FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences
2020-12-31T00:00:00Z
2020-12-31T00:00:00Z
en
7087186 bytes
2
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Lanternfishes currently represent one of the dominant groups of
mesopelagic fishes in terms of abundance, biomass and diversity. Their
otolith record dominates pelagic sediments below 200 m in dredges,
especially during the entire Neogene. Here we provide an analysis of their
diversity and rise to dominance primarily based on their otolith record.
The earliest unambiguous fossil myctophids are known based on otoliths
from the late Paleocene and early Eocene. During their early evolutionary
history myctophids were likely not adapted to a high oceanic lifestyle,
but occurred over shelf and upper slope regions where they were locally
abundant during the middle Eocene. A distinct up-scaling in otolith size
is observed in the early Oligocozoicne, which also marks their earliest
occurrence in bathyal sediments. We interpret this transition to be
related to the change from a halothermal deep ocean circulation (HTC) to a
thermohaline regime (THC), and the associated cooling of the deep ocean
and rearrangement of nutrient and silica supply. The early Oligocene
myctophid size acme shows a remarkable congruence with diatom abundance,
the main food resource for the zooplankton and thus for myctophids and
whales. The warmer late Oligocene to early middle Miocene period was
characterized by an increase in disparity of myctophids but with a
reduction in their otolith sizes. A second and persisting secular pulse in
myctophid diversity (particularly within the genus Diaphus) and increase
in size begins with the Biogenic Bloom in late Miocene, paralleled with
diatom abundance and mysticete gigantism