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Ontogenetic Niche Shift As A Driver Of Community Structure And Diversity In Non-Avian Dinosaurs, Katlin Schroeder

Biology ETDs

As some of the most charismatic megafauna to ever walk the earth, the physiology, morphology, growth and evolution of non-avian theropods has been studied exhaustively, yet little is understood about their roles in ecosystems as juveniles. For carnivorous megatheropods, which exceed 1,000kg in mass yet hatched from eggs of limited size, the likelihood of utilizing different prey through ontogeny was high, simply by proxy of the immense difference in size between adults and juveniles. We found these ontogenetic niche shifts, evidenced by significantly different dental microwear in Tyrannosaurids, to have excluded dinosaurian mesocarnivores from Mesozoic communities. The few dinosaurian mesocarnivores …