When fossil clades ‘compete’: local dominance, global diversification dynamics and causation

Examining the supposition that local-scale competition drives macroevolutionary patterns has become a familiar goal in fossil biodiversity studies. However, it is an elusive goal, hampered by inadequate confirmation of ecological equivalence and interactive processes between clades, patchy sampling, few comparative analyses of local species assemblages over long geological intervals, and a dearth of appropriate statistical tools. We address these concerns by reevaluating one of the classic examples of clade displacement in the fossil record, in which cheilostome bryozoans surpass the once dominant cyclostomes. Here, we analyse a newly expanded and vetted compilation of 40 190 fossil species occurrences to estimate cheilostome and cyclostome patterns of species proportions within assemblages, global genus richness and genus origination and extinction rates while accounting for sampling. Comparison of time-series models using linear stochastic differential equations suggests that inter-clade genus origination and extinction rates are causally linked to each other in a complex feedback relationship rather than by simple correlations or unidirectional relationships, and that these rates are not causally linked to changing within-assemblage proportions of cheilostome versus cyclostome species.

Are local dominance and inter-clade dynamics causally linked when one fossil clade displaces another?

Disputing the supposition that ecological competition drives macroevolutionary patterns is now a familiar goal in many fossil biodiversity studies. But it is an elusive goal, hampered by patchy sampling, few assemblage-level comparative analyses, unverified ecological equivalence of clades and a dearth of appropriate statistical tools. We address these concerns with a fortified and vetted compilation of 40190 fossil species occurrences of cyclostome and cheilostome bryozoans, a canonical example of one taxonomically dominant clade being displaced by another. Dramatic increases in Cretaceous cheilostome genus diversification rates begin millions of years before cheilostomes overtake cyclostomes in local species proportions. Moreover, analyses of origination and extinction rates over 150 Myr suggest that inter-clade dynamics are causally linked to each other, but not to changing assemblage-level proportions.One Sentence SummaryGlobal fossil diversification rates and local taxonomic dominance are not causally linked.

Ecological Theory and the Superfluous Niche

Perhaps no concept has been thought more important to ecological theorizing than the niche. Without it, technically sophisticated and well-regarded accounts of character displacement, ecological equivalence, limiting similarity, and others would seemingly never have been developed. The niche is also widely considered the centerpiece of the best candidate for a distinctively ecological law, the competitive exclusion principle. But the incongruous array and imprecise character of proposed definitions of the concept square poorly with its apparent scientific centrality. I argue this definitional diversity and imprecision reflects a problematic conceptual indeterminacy that challenges its putative indispensability in ecology.

ECOLOGICAL EFFICIENCY OF MANAGEMENT OF PRODUCTION PROCESSES OF HEAT ENERGY FACILITIES

The aim of the article is to develop scientific and methodological approaches for management decisions in production, statistical and mathematical information processing, forecasting and mathematical modeling, interpretation obtained in the process of experimental research, as organizational principles of environmental and economic activities of modern technologies in various fields, including, construction, housing and communal complex in industrial ecological management systems. The production of thermal energy at thermal power facilities of heat supply systems by means of reagent-free water treatment is an innovative technology that has already confirmed its right to exist. At the same time, some theoretical aspects of the process of magnetization of water, in connection with the adoption of certain management technologies, need further clarification. The paper draws attention to the fact that the relationships between field thermodynamics and field theory are represented by balance equations. It is proposed to carry out the effectiveness of environmental management in production in two directions: assessment of techno genic and ecological equivalence of water magnetization process - internal environment of heat supply systems, and assessment of economic and ecological equivalence of heat supply systems - external environment - device for magnetized water.