Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T23:46:14.845Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Geological and palaeontological information and phylogenetic hypotheses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

K. S. W. Campbell  and
R. E. Barwick
K. S. W. Campbell
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Department of Zoology, Australian National University, PO Box 4, Canberra, 2601 A.C.T., Australia
R. E. Barwick
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Department of Zoology, Australian National University, PO Box 4, Canberra, 2601 A.C.T., Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A number of workers have accepted the proposition that phylogenetic relations between extant organisms can be determined only by reference to the characters of those organisms. Palaeontological data, it is said, have not been useful for developing or refuting such hypotheses. This view may be tested by reference to the respiratory mechanisms of dipnoans (lungfishes) and amphibians. The structure of the heart, lungs, and circulatory systems has been used by various authors to support the view that these are sister groups. Geological data derived from stratigraphy, palaeoecology, taphonomy, geochemistry and functional morphology of primitive dipnoans is used herein to show that these organisms did not engage in aerial respiration. The first unequivocal evidence that dipnoans had become air breathers is from aestivation burrows in Early Permian rocks of the U.S.A. The Dipnoi must have evolved this capacity at some time between the Early Devonian, when the group became well established, and the Early Permian. Similarities between the respiratory systems of extant dipnoans and amphibians must be the result of convergence, or of the derivation of the Amphibia directly from the Dipnoi. The latter view is not currently accepted by any workers in the field. Thus data from the fossil record are used to demonstrate the invalid use of some neontological data for the development of a phylogenetic hypothesis. Classifications of extant organisms depending on putative shared–derived morphological or physiological characters that cannot be adequately tested for convergence by reference to fossils, must be regarded with due caution.

Type
Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 125 , Issue 3 , May 1988 , pp. 207 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, R. McN. 1967. Animal Mechanics. pp. 1–160. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.Google Scholar
Bemis, W. E. 1987. Feeding systems of living Dipnoi: anatomy and function. Journal of Morphology, Supplement, 1 (1986), 249–75.Google Scholar
Berman, D. S. 1976. Cranial morphology of the Lower Permian lungfish Gnathorhiza (Osteichthyes: Dipnoi) Journal of Paleontology 50, 1020–33.Google Scholar
Berman, D. S. 1979. Gnathorhiza bothrotreta from the Lower Permian Abo Formation of New Mexico. Annals of the Carnegie Museum 48, 211–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, I. R. & Foxon, G. E. H. 1968. The mechanism of breathing in the South American lungfish, Lepidosiren paradoxa; a radiological study. Journal of Zoology 154, 263–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burggren, W. W. & Johansen, K. 1987. Circulation and respiration in lungfishes (Dipnoi). Journal of Morphology, Supplement 1 (1986), 217–36.Google Scholar
Campbell, K. S. W. & Barwick, R. E. 1983. Early evolution of dipnoan dentitions and a new species of Speonesydrion. Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 1, 17–49.Google Scholar
Campbell, K. S. W. & Barwick, R. E. 1984. Speonesydrion, an Early Devonian dipnoan with primitive toothplates. Palaeolchthyologica 2, 1–48.Google Scholar
Campbell, K. S. W. & Barwick, R. E. 1987. Paleozoic lungfishes – a review. Journal of Morphology, Supplement 1 (1986), 93–131.Google Scholar
Campbell, K. S. W. & Smith, M. M. 1987. The Devonian Dipnoan Holodipterus: Dental variation and remodelling growth mechanisms. Records of the Australian Museum 38, 131–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, R. L. 1965. Lungfish burrows from the Michigan coal basin. Science (Washington) 148, 963–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Charig, A. J. 1982. Systematics in biology: a fundamental comparison of some major schools of thought. In Problems of Phylogenetic Reconstruction (ed. Joysey, K. A., Friday, A. E.), pp. 363–440. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Dasch, E. J. & Campbell, K. S. W. 1970. Strontium-isotope evidence for marine or freshwater origin of fossil Dipnoans and Arthrodires. Nature 227, 1159.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Denison, R. H. 1968. Early Devonian lungfishes from Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. Fieldiana (Geology) 17, 353–413.Google Scholar
Dineley, D. L. 1984. Devonian vertebrates in bio-stratigraphy. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 107 (3), 185–96.Google Scholar
Dineley, D. L. & Williams, B. P. J. 1968. Sedimentation and paleoecology of the Devonian Escuminac Formation and related strata, Escuminac Bay, Quebec. Special Papers of the Geological Society of America 106, 241 (Abstract).Google Scholar
Forey, P. L. 1982. Neontological analysis versus palaeontological stories. In Problems of Phylogenetic Reconstruction (ed. Joysey, K. A., Friday, A. E.), pp. 119–57. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fox, H. 1965. Early development of the head and pharynx of Neoceratodus with a consideration of its phylogeny. Australian Journal of Zoology 146, 470–554.Google Scholar
Goodrich, E. S. 1930. Studies on the Structure and Development of Vertebrates. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grigg, G. C. 1965. Studies on the Queensland lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri (Krefft). I. Anatomy, histology, and functioning of the lung. Australian Journal of Zoology 13, 243–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hills, E. S. 1941. The cranial roof of Dipnorhynchus sussmilchi (Eth. fil.). Records of the Australian Museum 21 (1), 45–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, E. B. 1985. Are lungfishes the sister group of tetrapods? Biological Journal of the Linnean Society of London 25, 379–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarvik, E. 1967. On the structure of the lower jaw in dipnoans: with a description of an Early Devonian dipnoan from Canada, Melanognathus canadenis gen. et. sp. nov. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society of London 47, 155–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarvik, E. 1980. Basic Structure and Evolution of Vertebrates. pp. 1–575. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kemp, A. 1987. The biology of the Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri (Krefft, 1870). Journal of Morphology, Supplement 1 (1986), 181–98.Google Scholar
Lehman, J. P. 1959. Les Dipneustes du Devonien Supérieur du Groenland. Meddelelser øm Grønland 160 (4), 1–58.Google Scholar
McMahon, B. R. 1969. A functional analysis of the aquatic and aerial respiratory movements of an African lungfish, Protopterus aethiopicus, with reference to the evolution of lung ventilation movements in vertebrates. Journal of Experimental Biology 51, 407–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miles, R. S. 1977. Dipnoan (lungfish) skulls and the relationships of the group: a study based on new species from the Devonian of Australia. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society of London 61, 1–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, C. 1981. Significance of fossils in determining evolutionary relationships. Annual Reviews of Ecology and Systematics 12, 195–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Playford, P. E. 1980. Devonian ‘great barrier reef’ of Canning Basin, Western Australia. Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists 64 (6), 814–40.Google Scholar
Playford, P. E. & Lowry, D. C. 1966. Devonian reef complexes of the Canning Basin, Western Australia. Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Western Australia 118, 1–150.Google Scholar
Rosen, D. E., Forey, P. L., Gardiner, B. G. & Patterson, C. 1981. Lungfishes, tetrapods, paleontology, and plesiomorphy. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 167 (4), 159–276.Google Scholar
Schultze, H. P. 1987. Dipnoans as Sarcopterygians. Journal of Morphology, Supplement 1 (1986), 39–74.Google Scholar
Schultze, H. P. & Campbell, K. S. W. 1987. Characterisation of the Dipnoi a monophyletic group. Journal of Morphology, Supplement 1 (1986), 25–37.Google Scholar
Smith, A. B. 1984. Classification of the Echinodermata. Palaeontology 27 (3), 431–59.Google Scholar
Smith, M. M. & Campbell, K. S. W. 1987. Comparative morphology, histology and growth of the dental plates of the Devonian Dipnoan Chirodipterus. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 317, 329–63.Google ScholarPubMed
Thomson, K. S. 1969. The biology of the lobe-finned fishes. Biological Reviews 44, 91–154.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thomson, K. S. & Campbell, K. S. W. 1971. The structure and relationships of the primitive Devonian lungfish – Dipnorhynchus sussmilchi. Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History 38, 1–109.Google Scholar
Watson, D. M. S. & Gill, E. L. 1923. The structure of certain Palaeozoic Dipnoi. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society of London 35, 163–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, P. W. 1982. Locomotor patterns in the evolution of actinopterygian fishes. American Zoologist 22 (2), 329–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westoll, T. S. 1949. On the evolution of the Dipnoi. In Genetics, Paleontology and Evolution (ed. Jepson, G. L., Simpson, G. G., Mayr, E.), pp. 121–84. Princeton: University Press.Google Scholar
Westoll, T. S. 1979. Devonian fish biostratigraphy. The Devonian System. In Special Papers in Palaeontology (ed. House, M. R., Scrutton, C. T. and Bassett, M. G.) 23, 341–53.Google Scholar
White, E. 1966. Presidential address: a little on lung-fishes. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London 177, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodrow, D. L. & Fletcher, F. W. 1969. Devonian dipnoan aestivation cylinders. Special Papers of the Geological Society of America 121, 383–4 (Abstract).Google Scholar