10.5061/DRYAD.QFTTDZ0JJ
Zuschin, Martin
0000-0002-5235-0198
University of Vienna
Nawrot, Rafal
0000-0002-5774-7311
University of Vienna
Dengg, Markus
0000-0002-6411-7473
University of Otago
Gallmetzer, Ivo
University of Vienna
Haselmair, Alexandra
University of Vienna
Wurzer, Sandra
University of Vienna
Tomašových, Adam
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Scale dependence of drilling predation in the Holocene of the northern
Adriatic Sea across benthic habitats and nutrient regimes
Dryad
dataset
2021
FWF Austrian Science Fund
https://ror.org/013tf3c58
P24901
Slovak Research and Development Agency
https://ror.org/037nx0e70
APVV 0555-17
Slovak Scientific Grant Agency*
VEGA 2/0169-19
2021-12-22T00:00:00Z
2021-12-22T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5776278
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5776282
259324 bytes
4
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Predation has strongly shaped past and modern marine ecosystems, but the
scale dependency of patterns in drilling predation, the most widely used
proxy for predator-prey interactions in the fossil record, is a matter of
debate. To assess the effects of spatial and taxonomic scale on temporal
trends in the drilling frequencies (DF), we analyzed Holocene molluscan
assemblages of different benthic habitats and nutrient regimes from the
northern Adriatic shelf in a sequence stratigraphic context. Although it
has been postulated that low predation pressures facilitated the
development of high-biomass epifaunal communities in the eastern,
relatively oligotrophic portion of the northern Adriatic shelf, DFs
reaching up to 30-40% in the studied assemblage show that drilling
predation levels are comparable to those typical of Late Cenozoic
ecosystems. DFs tend to increase from the transgressive systems tract
(TST) into the highstand systems tract (HST) at the local scale,
reflecting an increase in water depth by 20-40 m and a shift from
infralittoral to circalittoral habitats over the past 10,000 years. As
transgressive deposits are thicker at shallower and highstand deposits are
thicker at deeper locations, a regional increase in DFs from TST to HST is
evident only when these differences are accounted for. The increase in DF
towards the HST can be recognized at the level of total assemblages,
classes and few abundant and widespread families, but it disappears at the
level of genera and species because of their specific environmental
requirements, leading to uneven or patchy distribution in space and time.