Hardly used habitats: Dearth and distribution of burrowing in Paleozoic and Mesozoic stream and lake deposits
- 1Geology Department, Box 117 Station B, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA
- 2University School of Nashville, 1900 Edgehill Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee 37212, USA
- 3Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37232-2637, USA
- 4Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Abstract
Limited use of substrate ecospace by a meager infauna in streams and lakes is indicated by analysis of more than 10 000 observations of bioturbation in Permian through Jurassic freshwater deposits. In contrast, marine substrates have been inhabited and bioturbated since the Cambrian; colonization of freshwater substrates differed fundamentally from that of marine substrates. Bioturbation-enhanced flux of dissolved materials across the sediment-water interface was not operating until after the Paleozoic in freshwater ecosystems.
Footnotes
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- Accepted February 13, 2002.
- Received September 12, 2001.
- Revision received February 12, 2002.
- Geological Society of America
