Assessing transportation by the covariance of species with comments on contagious and random distributions |
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Authors: | HAYS CUMMINS ERIC N POWELL H J NEWTON ROBERT J STANTON JR GEORGE STAFF |
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Institution: | Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, U.S.A.;Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, U.S.A.;H.J. Newton, Department of Statistics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, U.S.A.;Robert J. Stanton, Jr., Department of Geology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, U.S.A.;George Staff, Department of Geology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, U.S.A. |
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Abstract: | The paleoecologist must be able to distinguish a transported assemblage from an in situ one. A method is proposed to assess whether the post-mortem transport of individuals affected their observed spatial (horizontal) distribution. The spatial distribution of a species can be random or contagious. The spatial distribution of individuals of a species in the death assemblage produced by the cumulation of many temporally discrete inputs will be random if the individual inputs are random and contagious if the inputs are contagious. The spatial distribution patterns of several species should not covary in the absence of physical disturbance regardless of their own distributions, however. The degree of covariance between individuals of several species of similar hydrodynamic propensity is dependent on the amount and intensity of postmortem movement. The more species that covary, and the larger the size classes that covary, the more likely that transportation played an important role in the species' distribution patterns. Conversely, the absence of covariance suggests that, for at least some species, biological factors determined the species' spatial distributions. Similarly, covariance of vertical distribution patterns might suggest homogenization. by bioturbational or physical mixing. |
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Keywords: | Paleoecology transportation patchiness distribution death assemblage |
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