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Science 24 December 2004:
Vol. 306. no. 5705, pp. 2229 - 2231
DOI: 10.1126/science.1106182
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Reports

Reduced Competition and Altered Feeding Behavior Among Marine Snails After a Mass Extinction

Gregory P. Dietl,1*{dagger} Gregory S. Herbert,2*{ddagger} Geerat J. Vermeij2

Extinction may alter competitive interactions among surviving species, affecting their subsequent recovery and evolution, but these processes remain poorly understood. Analysis of predation traces produced by shell-drilling muricid snails on bivalve prey reveals that species interactions were substantially different before and after a Plio-Pleistocene mass extinction in the western Atlantic. Muricids edge- and wall-drilled their prey in the Pliocene, but Pleistocene and Recent snails attacked prey only through the shell wall. Experiments with living animals suggest that intense competition induces muricid snails to attack shell edges. Pliocene predators, therefore, probably competed for resources more intensely than their post-extinction counterparts.

1 Center for Marine Science, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NC 28409, USA.
2 Department of Geology and Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.



* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} Present address: Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.

{ddagger} Present address: Department of Geology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
PALEOENVIRONMENTALLY CORRELATED DIFFERENCES IN A CLASSIC PREDATOR-PREY SYSTEM: THE BIVALVE CHIONE ELEVATA AND ITS GASTROPOD PREDATORS.
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LATE CRETACEOUS GASTROPOD DRILLING INTENSITIES: DATA FROM THE MAASTRICHTIAN FOX HILLS FORMATION, WESTERN INTERIOR SEAWAY, USA.
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