Euryhaline ecology of early tetrapods revealed by stable isotopes

• Published in: Nature
• Main Authors: Goedert, Jean, Lécuyer, Christophe, Amiot, Romain, Arnaud-Godet, Florent, Wang, Xu, Cui, Linlin, Cuny, Gilles, Douay, Guillaume, Fourel, François, Panczer, Gérard, Simon, Laurent, Steyer, J.-Sébastien, Zhu, Min
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon - Terre, Planètes, Environnement Lyon (LGL-TPE), École normale supérieure - Lyon (ENS Lyon)-Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL), Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel : Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie (PACEA), Université de Bordeaux (UB)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche (M.E.N.E.S.R.), Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment Beijing, Institute of Geology and Geophysics Beijing (IGG), Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing (CAS)-Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing (CAS), Zoo de Lyon, Laboratoire d'Ecologie des Hydrosystèmes Naturels et Anthropisés (LEHNA), Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL), Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État (ENTPE)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut Lumière Matière Villeurbanne (ILM), Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre de recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements (CR2P), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2018
• Subjects: [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Greenland; East Greenland
• Online Access: https://hal-univ-lyon1.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01817999; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0159-2

International audience The fish-to-tetrapod transition—followed later by terrestrialization—represented a major step in vertebrate evolution that gave rise to a successful clade that today contains more than 30,000 tetrapod species. The early tetrapod Ichthyostega was discovered in 1929 in the Devonian Old Red Sandstone sediments of East Greenland (dated to approximately 365 million years ago). Since then, our understanding of the fish-to-tetrapod transition has increased considerably, owing to the discovery of additional Devonian taxa that represent early tetrapods or groups evolutionarily close to them. However, the aquatic environment of early tetrapods and the vertebrate fauna associated with them has remained elusive and highly debated. Here we use a multi-stable isotope approach (δ13C, δ18O and δ34S) to show that some Devonian vertebrates, including early tetrapods, were euryhaline and inhabited transitional aquatic environments subject to high-magnitude, rapid changes in salinity, such as estuaries or deltas. Euryhalinity may have predisposed the early tetrapod clade to be able to survive Late Devonian biotic crises and then successfully colonize terrestrial environments.