Right: This Xenophora snail from the Pliocene Epoch shows how it finds a way to survive by incorporating shelly material from other organisms into its own shell. Left: Bulk sample of several ancient bivalves (clams) and gastropods (snails). Credit: University of Cincinnati
Researchers have produced a model of epoch-to-epoch changes in marine bivalves and gastropods during the Cenozoic period (65 million years go to present), providing a view of changes in distribution from tropical latitudes toward the Earth’s poles over time. The results show that climate change through the Cenozoic period had little effect on the migration patterns of ancient mollusks.
The study was supported in part by the Exobiology & Evolutionary biology element of the NASA Astrobiology Program, and provides new insight into the evolutionary history of life on Earth.
The paper, “Cenozoic latitudinal response curves: individualistic changes in the latitudinal distributions of marine bivalves and gastropods,” was published in the journal Paleobiology.
For more, check out this press release from the University of Cincinnati.