Seagrass-Associated Molluscan and Fish Communities from the Early Pleistocene of the Island of Rhodes (Greece)

World Multidisciplinary Earth Sciences Symposium

Koskeridou, Efterpi^1 ; Thivaiou, Danae^1 ; Giamali, Christina^2 ; Agiadi, Konstantina^1 ; Mantzouka, Dimitra^1

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, Department of Hist. Geology-Paleontology, Panepistimioupoli Zographou, Athens

157 84, Greece^1

Goulandris Natural History Museum, Levidou 13, Kifissia

145 62, Greece^2

关键词: Associated communities;    Coarse-grained sediments;    Early pleistocene;    Eastern Mediterranean;    Environmental change;    Fine-grained sand;    Posidonia oceanica;    Siliciclastic sediments;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/221/1/012050/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1755-1315/221/1/012050

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Well-preserved leaves and rhizomes of the Mediterranean endemic marine angiosperm Posidonia oceanica and the rich associated mollusc and fish fauna are contained in the early Pleistocene shallow siliciclastic sediments of the Kritika Formation of the island of Rhodes (Greece). The leaf moulds are preserved in fine-grained sands, whereas the rhizomes are found in situ within coarse-grained sediments. The associated molluscan fauna includes 79 species, 47 gastropods and 32 bivalves, most of them extant. The rhizome-associated community comprises 49 species and the leaves-associated community includes 30 species. Small gastropods grazing on microalgae (Rissoidae, Cerithiidae, Trochidae) are the most abundant elements of the fauna, however carnivorous gastropods (Nassariidae, Naticidae, Muricidae) are also diverse. Among the bivalves Lucinidae (e.g., Lucinella) numerically dominate the deeper infauna and other chemosymbiont bivalves, as Ungulinidae (Diplodonta) are also common. Although many species are not associated exclusively with this seagrass and they may occur in other environments as well, they generally thrive on P. oceanica leaves and rhizomes. The Posidonia oceanica meadows were also inhabited by several characteristic fish species which thrive in the seagrass meadows of the eastern Mediterranean until today. The studied fauna is the first reported from the early Pleistocene of Greece and shows similarities to the modern counterparts of Posidonia oceanica meadows, providing new data on the resilience of seagrass ecosystems to environmental change in general.