Paleobiology, 35(1), 2009, pp. 77-93 Ecology of extreme faunal turnover of tropical American scallops J. Travis Smith and Jeremy B.C. Jackson Abstract.?The marine faunas of tropical America underwent substantial evolutionary turnover in the past 3 to 4 million years in response to changing environmental conditions associated with the rise of the Isthmus of Panama, but the ecological signature of changes within major clades is still poorly understood. Here we analyze the paleoecology of faunal turnover within the family Pectin- idae (scallops) over the past 12 Myr. The fossil record for the southwest Caribbean (SWC) is re- markably complete over this interval. Diversity increased from a low of 12 species ca. 10-9 Ma to a maximum of 38 species between 4 and3 Ma and then declined to 22 species today. In contrast, there are large gaps in the record from the tropical eastern Pacific (TEP) and diversity remained low throughout the past 10 Myr. Both origination and extinction rates in the SWC peaked between 4 and 3 Ma, and remained high until 2-1 Ma, resulting in a 95% species level turnover between 3.5 and 2 Ma. The TEP record was too incomplete for meaningful estimates of origination and extinc- tion rates. All living species within the SWC originated within the last 4 Myr, as evidenced by a sudden jump in Lyellian percentages per faunule from nearly zero up to 100% during this same interval. However, faunules with Lyellian percentages near zero occurred until 1.8 Ma, so that geo- graphic distributions were extraordinarily heterogeneous until final extinction occurred. There were also striking differences in comparative diversity and abundance among major ecological groups of scallops. Free-swimming scallops constituted the most diverse guild throughout most of the last 10 Myr in the SWC, and were always moderately to very abundant. Leptopecten and Argopecten were also highly diverse throughout the late Miocene and early Pliocene, but declined to very few species thereafter. In contrast, byssally attaching scallops gradually increased in both diversity and abundance since their first appearance in our samples from 8-9 Ma and are the most diverse group today. Evolutionary turnover of scallops in the SWC was correlated with strong eco- logical reorganization of benthic communities that occurred in response to declining productivity and increased development of corals reefs. /. Travis Smith. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Cali- fornia 92093-0244. E-mail: tsmith@dudek.com Jeremy B. C. Jackson. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0244, and Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archeology, Smithsonian Tropical Re- search Institute, Box 2072, Balboa, Republic of Panama Accepted: 23 July 2008 The isolation of the Atlantic from the Pacific Introduction Anderson and Roopnarine 2003), reef corals (Budd and Johnson 1999), and bryozoans (Cheetham and Jackson 1996, 2000, all of Ocean by the Isthmus of Panama ca. 3.5 Ma , . , , ., .. . , , ,. J which exhibit increased evolutionary turnover (Coates et al. 1992, 2004; Coates and Obando ,, _ _ , , ^ , r ? ? . ? , after 3.5 Ma. Kates of origination and extmc- 1996; Bartoli et al. 2005) was associated with .. ., ,.rr ,, ,. ' tion vary greatly among different taxa, result- large changes in oceanographic conditions, ing ^ very ^rong faunal turnover in some high faunal turnover, and significant reorga- ^axa such as gastropods, reef corals, and erect nization of the benthic communities in the bryozoans but not in other groups such as hi- Tropical Western Atlantic (TWA) between valves and encrusting bryozoans (Cheetham about 3.5 and 1.5 Ma (Woodring 1966; Jackson and jackson 1996; Budd and Johnson 1999; and Johnson 2000; Todd et al. 2002; O'Dea et Jackson and Johnson 2000; Todd et al. 2002; al. 2007. Early studies were based largely on Johnson et al. 2007). Greater focus on origi- extinction of gastropods (Woodring 1966; Ver- nation also revealed that overall molluscan di- meij 1978; Petuch 1982; Jones and Hasson versity within the southwest Caribbean 1985; Vermeij and Petuch 1986), but more re- (SWC) increased during faunal turnover cent analyses have included bivalves (Jackson (Jackson et al. 1993), despite high extinction et al. 1993; Roopnarine 1996; Anderson 2001; rates of several "paciphillic" taxa that were ? 2009 The Paleontological Society. All rights reserved. 0094-8373/09/3501-0006/$1.00 78 J. T. SMITH AND J. B. C. JACKSON the primary focus of most earlier analyses (Woodring 1966; Jones and Hasson 1985; Ver- meij and Petuch 1986). Some of the most important ecological changes are apparent only through compila- tions of relative abundance instead of just lists of taxa (Todd et al. 2002). Predatory gastro- pods and suspension-feeding bivalves de- clined significantly in abundance, but not in overall diversity while reef dwelling gastro- pods became more abundant (Todd et al. 2002). In contrast, other ecological groups of mollusks remained relatively unchanged in abundance. These differences between ecolog- ical patterns based on relative abundance data versus those derived only from taxonomic lists emphasize the importance of using abun- dance data in addition to diversity (McKinney et al. 1998; Jackson and Erwin 2006). However, abundance data can be highly affected by sampling biases, so samples must be collected in a standardized and systematic fashion (Jackson et al. 1999; Jackson and Erwin 2006). A major enigmatic feature of the SWC ex- tinction is that much of the peak in rates of faunal turnover, especially for gastropods and reef corals, occurred up to 2 Myr after the final closure of the Isthmus and associated major changes in TWA environments (Budd and Johnson 1999; Jackson and Johnson 2000; O'Dea et al. 2007). High levels of extinction around the end of the Pliocene and early Pleis- tocene have also been noted in faunas as far north as Florida (Stanley and Campbell 1981; Stanley 1986a; Petuch 1982,1995; Allmon et al. 1993, 1996) and California (Stanley 1986b; Smith and Roy 2006). However, the relation of extinction patterns in these more northern faunas to the formation of the Isthmus is dif- ficult to define, despite the temporal correla- tion. Synthesizing the previous work of Petuch (1982), Vermeij and Petuch (1986), Jones and Allmon (1995), and Roopnarine (1996), All- mon (2001) postulated that the major environ- mental cause of extinction in the TWA was a regional decrease in productivity. This hy- pothesis is supported by major changes in abundance of different trophic groups in the SWC and by evidence for a regional drop in productivity ca. 4-3 Ma (Todd et al. 2002; O'Dea et al. 2007). However, the relationship between events in the SWC and the North American faunas analyzed by Stanley and Campbell (1981), Stanley (1986a) and Allmon et al. (1993, 1996) is still unclear. In this paper, we describe basic patterns of diversity, origination, and extinction, as well as apparent causes of faunal turnover, for spe- cies of the highly diverse and abundant bi- valve family Pectinidae (scallops) in the SWC and TEP over the past 12 Myr. The family Pec- tinidae is monophyletic (Waller 1978, 1984, 1991,1993, 2006) yet exhibits a great variety of life habits and ecology that are useful to dis- sect how changes in the environment have af- fected the evolutionary expansion or decline of different functional groups. We also exam- ine patterns of origination and extinction at different taxonomic levels as well as the cor- respondence between diversity and abun- dance on a sample-by-sample basis. Use of all the available information provides a much more complete and subtle understanding of evolution and environment than that based on taxon counting alone. Analysis of the relation- ships between environmental change and scallop life-history evolution will be presented in a separate paper. Materials and Methods Quantitative samples of fossil scallops from Panama, Costa Rica, and Ecuador were ob- tained from 226 bulk samples supplemented by the more than 350 collections of specimens gleaned from outcrops by members of the Panama Paleontology Project (PPP) over the past 20 years. Paleontologists have studied all of the sedimentary basins included here since the 1920s so that we have been able to build on their early collections and stratigraphic framework. Samples come from three regions: (1) the TEP, (2) central and eastern Panama (referred to here as "isthmian"), and (3) the Bocas del Toro and Limon regions of north- western Panama and southeastern Costa Rica (Fig. 1). The most important collections from the TEP are from the Borbon and Manabi ba- sins in Ecuador (Pilsbry and Olsson 1941; Ols- son 1964; Hasson and Fischer 1986; Aalto and Miller 1999; Landini et al. 2002; Cantalamessa et al. 2005), the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, and the Burica Peninsula in Panama ECOLOGY OF FAUNAL TURNOVER 79 FIGURE 1. Map of sample areas. Boxed areas enclose the generalized sedimentary basins described in the text. A, Manabi. B, Borbon. C, Burica/Nicoya Peninsulas. D, Ca- nal Zone. E, Chucunaque. F, Bocas del Toro. G, Limon. Dredge samples were collected in the region of all five basins sampled for fossils in Panama and Costa Rica, as well as two areas off Nicaragua and Honduras where no fossils were sampled. Abbreviations: GP, Gulf of Pana- ma; GC, Gulf of Chiriqui; SB, western San Bias archi- pelago; BT, Bocas del Toro province from the Laguna Chiriqui to the Golfo de los Moskitos; LCH, Los Cochi- nos, Honduras; CMN, Cayos Moskitos, Nicaragua. (Olsson 1942; Coates et al. 1992). Collections from the isthmian region that have both TEP and SWC affinities include the classic forma- tions from the Canal Zone (Woodring 1957- 1982; Collins et al. 1996b; Johnson and Kirby 2006), the north-central Coast of Panama (Coates 1999), and the Darien region of Pan- ama (Coates et al. 2004). The Bocas del Toro and Limon region is the most extensively sam- pled and includes the Limon Basin in north- eastern Costa Rica (Olsson 1922; Collins et al. 1995; McNeill et al. 2000), and the Bocas del Toro Basin in northwestern Panama (Olsson 1922; Collins 1993; Collins et al. 1995; Coates et al. 2003, 2005; Coates 2006). In the analyses that follow, samples from the Isthmian and Bocas del Toro/Limon regions were combined to constitute the SWC regional fauna. Finally, dredge samples of recent scallops were ob- tained from the TEP and SWC as a baseline for comparison and calculation of Lyellian per- centages for samples of fossils (Fig. 1) (Smith et al. 2006). Bulk samples were first sorted to class (e.g., bivalve, gastropod, coral). Scallops were pick- ed and sorted from the bivalve fraction and identified to species following Waller (1969, 1984, 1991, 1993, 2006). Previously unde- scribed species were identified using open no- menclature pending more thorough taxonom- ic comparison with samples from outside the regions sampled. Appendix 1 includes a com- plete list of all of the species found in this study. Individual samples were combined into faunules (Jackson et al. 1999; O'Dea et al. 2007) to obtain a more representative sample of the composition and diversity of the scallop fauna from different places, environments, and ages through time. A faunule represents a group of samples from a single outcrop or closely adjacent exposures that can be as- signed with confidence to the same age and environment. Appendix 2 lists all of the faun- ules along with their age, environmental con- ditions, and diversity of scallops used in this study. These groupings do not reflect com- pletely equivalent sampling in terms of range of environment or sampling intensity, but they provide larger sample sizes allowing analysis of patterns within time bins. Diversity was calculated as species richness (S) and Shannon-Weiner diversity (H) (Hayek and Buzas 1997; Foggo et al. 2003). Species richness was calculated from all of the differ- ent collections combined. H was calculated from only the quantitative data from bulk samples. We calculated stratigraphic ranges for all species collected on the basis of actual occurrence and range-through data and used 1-Myr time bins to assess general trends in di- versity. We also calculated extinction and origination rates through time on the basis of numbers of occurrences and per-taxon rates. We have not calculated confidence intervals for first and last occurrences of species be- cause all of the established methods are based only on occurrences (Strauss and Sadler 1989; Marshall 1994, 1997; Wang and Marshall 80 J. T. SMITH AND J. B. C. JACKSON -4 - -S -6 1=1 ? ? 0 ? 0 0 S ID IS Faunules a o so ice iso Collections 0 10 JO 30 40 Richness n \ZZL o i 00 i n i 0 .30 -10 0 10 20 LO FO ? a m CD D I m i n D h .!? .15 ti OS 14 Ext Rate Orig. Rate -2 .3 -4 - .S , -6 B =1 0 1 i 3 t s Faunules ? 0 40 so wo Collections ? ? 0 ? 0 0 0 i 0 I CO 1 0 1 1 0 10 SO 30 40 Richness JO -10 0 10 20 LO FO -IX -05 Ofl OS 1.0 Ext Rate Orig. Rate FIGURE 2. Sampling, species diversity, extinction, and origination. Sampling is plotted as the number of faunules and collections. Species values are plotted as numbers of species for richness, first occurrences (FO), and last oc- currences (LO), and as per-taxon rates for extinction and origination rates. All data were calculated in 1-Myr time bins. A, Southwest Caribbean (SWC). B, Tropical eastern Pacific (TEP). 2004), even though non-occurrences are of ob- vious biostratigraphic and evolutionary sig- nificance (Hayek and Bura 2001). Most scallop species in our collections are rare, as is typical of faunal samples generally (Hayek and Buzas 1997; Jackson et al. 1999), and more than half of the Caribbean species and >80% of eastern Pacific species occur in just three or fewer faunules. In spite of their rarity however, the collector's curves for most of the younger stratigraphic intervals suggest that we have sampled most of the available species. Thus, it is unlikely that the absence of species from ho- rizons younger than their last observed occur- rence is an artifact. For all of these reasons, and the lack of practical alternative statistical methods that incorporate non-occurrences (Hayek and Bura 2001), we have taken the ranges of species occurrences of species at face value. Diversity in Space and Time The fossil record of the past 12 Myr is much more complete for the SWC than for the TEP (Coates et al. 1992) (Fig. 2A,B). Detailed sam- pling in the Bocas del Toro and Limon Basins has produced a reasonably complete record of scallop macroevolution in this region, espe- cially for the last 5 Myr. We sampled 14 faun- ules from the late Pliocene and Pleistocene, 16 faunules from the early Pliocene, and seven faunules from the late Miocene. The most im- ECOLOGY OF FAUNAL TURNOVER 81 portant gap in the record is for the Pleistocene younger than 1.4 Ma and the relatively poorly sampled interval from about 4.3 to 7 Ma. The isthmian region includes 15 late Miocene faunules and nothing from younger deposits including the Pleistocene deposits reported by Woodring (1957-1982). In contrast, the record from the TEP includes a huge gap in sampling between 7.3 and 3.6 Ma. Seven faunules were sampled from the late Miocene and seven faunules from the late Pliocene to early Pleis- tocene. Scallops were present in more than 95% of all the samples both fossil and recent, indicat- ing that the species within this family utilize a very broad range of environments compa- rable to bivalves as a whole. There were 82 species of Pectinidae in our collections, 61 from the SWC, 18 from the TEP, and three that occur as fossils in both regions (Appendix 1). Species richness over the past 12 Myr was much more variable in the SWC than the TEP (Fig. 2B). Diversity in the SWC increased from a low of eight species in the late Miocene to a high of 41 species in the middle Pliocene (4-3 Ma) and then declined to 22 species today (Fig. 2A). In contrast, diversity in the TEP was essentially unchanged over the same period, with the apparent decrease between 7 and 4 Ma due to a lack of samples for this interval, so the data are for range-through taxa only. Ten species occurred in the late Miocene and early Pliocene collections and nine to ten spe- cies in the Pleistocene to Recent (Fig. 2B). Collector's curves were constructed for each time bin sampled to test for sampling bias, and compared numbers of species collected to the total known diversity represented by col- lected and range-through taxa combined. In the SWC (Fig. 3A), the most heavily sampled fossil time bin, as measured by total number of specimens, is the middle Pliocene (4-3 Ma). A remarkable 40 of 41 total known taxa (98%) were recovered from this interval. Excluding the early Pleistocene (2-1 Ma), the next four most heavily sampled time bins (10-9, 5-4, 3-2, and 7-6 Ma) contained 82-92% recovery of species known to have been present. In con- trast, the five most poorly sampled bins (6-5, 9-8, 8-7,12-11, and 11-10 Ma) contained few- 4) to e 3 ?~ *' *' 4to3Ma s- ^T 3 to 2 Ma 5I04M3 / ^^Ir"tf^*-'10 s ** p. Recent, N = 9148 Aj%/^__. 10 to SMJ .- 2 to 1 Ma K^X^3to8Ma #f Bto7Ma *?* 1310 12 Ms f- 11 to 10 Ma f_* 6 to 5 Ma *"*^ 121011 Ms 500 1000 1500 Number of Specimens E ? 3 Z s " s- R- 10to9Ma ^f '? 2to1MS Off' ' 810 7Ma wf 4 to 3 Ma Recent. N = 9806 o- ' B 500 1000 1500 Number of Specimens FIGURE 3. Collector's curves. Sampling effort for the time bins sampled in the SWC (A) and TEP (B). The x-axis was truncated at 2000 specimens, far fewer than the sampled level of the Recent time bins, to allow visual appraisal of the fossil time bins. er than 50% of the species known to have oc- curred in the SWC during those age intervals. The records for two additional bins require separate comment. The high recovery (80%) of the oldest bin (13-12 Ma) is an artifact of the first occurrence of all but a single early Mio- cene species. In contrast, the early Pleistocene (2-1 Ma) bin is relatively well sampled (the third most specimens), but contained only 67% of the species known to have occurred in the TWA during this time. We attribute this low recovery to the small number of faunules sampled (all from Swan Cay and several faun- ules in the Limon Basin) coupled with the in- creasing heterogeneity of Caribbean environ- 82 J. T. SMITH AND J. B. C. JACKSON ments at this time (O'Dea et al. 2007). Testing these ideas, however, will require comparably detailed sampling from other regions of the TWA. Sampling in the TEP was generally good (Fig. 4B) despite the relatively small number of specimens because of the greater homoge- neity of TEP environments and relatively low numbers of species throughout the last 12 Myr. The stratigraphic ranges of all species in this study are depicted in Figure 4. Origination, Extinction, and the Ecology of Faunal Turnover The peaks in both origination and extinc- tion in the SWC at 4-3 Ma coincide with the maximum diversity of scallop species (Fig. 2A). This is true for both the raw numbers of first and last occurrences and for per-taxon rates. In contrast, there is no obvious peak in origination or extinction in the TEP, although the 3-Myr gap in sampling may obscure a gen- uine peak in faunal turnover between 4 and 3 Ma (Fig. 2B). The overall patterns of diversity and evo- lution of scallops in the SWC correlate closely with those observed for bivalve genera and subgenera from the same region (Todd et al. 2002). There is a significant correlation be- tween numbers of scallop species and of bi- valve genera and subgenera (Fig. 5A; r2 = 0.739, p = 0.0003) and between rates of ex- tinction for bivalves and for scallops (Fig. 5B, r 2 = 0.736, p = 0.0004). However, the correla- tion between rates of origination for the two groups is only marginally significant (Fig. 5C; r2 = 0.324, p = 0.0536). Scallops exhibit a very wide range of life habits, including byssal attachment, free swimming, and cementing and nestling on both level bottoms and hard substrata (Stan- ley 1970), although the two latter life habits were not observed in our samples from the SWC. Several genera exhibit a mixture of life habits. Most species of scallops begin their ju- venile benthic existence attached by byssal threads to small hard substrata, but subse- quently detach to become merely sedentary or strongly free-swimming as adults (Stanley 1970; Waller 1984, 1991, 2006). However, spe- cies in several genera, particularly those as- sociated with coral reef and seagrass environ- ments, retain byssal attachment as adults. Life habit of most species is readily apparent for fossil as well as living species from their shell morphology (Stanley 1970), although the ge- nus Leptopecten does not fit the overall mor- phological pattern as well as other genera in- cluded in Stanley's (1970) study. We exploited these ecological differences among scallops to examine the ecological pat- terns associated with faunal turnover. Species were assigned to one of four groups based on differences in life habits and taxonomy: (1) byssally attaching; (2) free swimming; (3) Ar- gopecten sensu stricto, excluding the unde- scribed Pectinid Genus A (Smith et al. 2006), that exhibit a combination of byssally attach- ing and free-swimming habits; and (4) Lepto- pecten (plus Pacipecten) that defy clear-cut eco- logical separation. These four groups include 63 of the 82 scallop species (77%) of the entire tropical American fauna sampled from the two oceans; the rest were excluded from the ecological analyses. Byssally attaching scallops include species in the genera Spathochlamys, Demarzipecten, Caribachlamys, Bractechlamys, and Laevichla- mys. Spathochlamys occurs in both the TWA and TEP, whereas the other byssally attaching genera are restricted to the Caribbean, where they are overwhelmingly associated with cor- al reef environments (Waller 1993). Free- swimming species include all those tradition- ally assigned to the genus Euvola (Waller 1991). However, Waller (2006) has emended this group and species are now assigned to two genera, Leopecten and Euvola. This group also includes species traditionally considered Amusium, which Waller (1991) included in the genus Euvola. The two taxonomically defined groups are distinct ecologically and are di- verse and abundant enough to justify separate analysis. Argopecten occurred in all environ- ments sampled whereas Leptopecten was more narrowly distributed ecologically in the SWC. Recent Leptopecten in the eastern Pacific have been described as r-selected (Morton 1994), a life-history pattern that appears to be unique among tropical American scallops. The proportional diversity and abundance of the four groups in the SWC varied greatly ECOLOGY OF FAUNAL TURNOVER 83 o ?2 -4 a -6 -e -10 -12 A o -2 -4 IE -6 -8 -10 -12 B M I I I I I I M M I I I I I I I I I I I I M I I I I i M I c c tfl c: c c= yirf c c c cCDcccc=c c^q c *? c:cccccc{n^ cu CD m c: (nammdimafO'La^mCOmmtDaimm ro-a>aj(DCila?'m.^ro-iii-ra ID m aitDib dim i- jj r-,? t-, <-..-,_ ?., Q.QQ.CMMCICIQ.Q.Uo.Q^ a.ap. o.Q.cjrno.aap 3 r Ur r aaaaQruaQr a.^LUZQ.~E~F GL&;F a.Q.a.f'uj MVO-^ = o^ oo-"Oco or.- o y or. o ta a OT^ cr, -rir.o o o oor.ou or.o E TiT.^r, Q^r.oos^ j moor:r.p QQJ Q. Q. *-\jP CL CL CLCL 6. ,? _l CLU ? V tfl tO tf)W II i i i i i i i i i i Q fl) o * ? a> aj ^ * ^ -^ a) Ml Q_ & O. & O. & Q_ Q__? o*? o> a> o> E E? BU CJQ.?'?'?' Q> <<- I I I I I 1 I I I I ? E 02