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Comparative Study
. 2013 Jul 10;8(7):e67182.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067182. Print 2013.

Skull ecomorphology of megaherbivorous dinosaurs from the dinosaur park formation (upper campanian) of Alberta, Canada

Jordan C Mallon  1 , Jason S Anderson
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Skull ecomorphology of megaherbivorous dinosaurs from the dinosaur park formation (upper campanian) of Alberta, Canada

Jordan C Mallon et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Megaherbivorous dinosaur coexistence on the Late Cretaceous island continent of Laramidia has long puzzled researchers, owing to the mystery of how so many large herbivores (6-8 sympatric species, in many instances) could coexist on such a small (4-7 million km(2)) landmass. Various explanations have been put forth, one of which-dietary niche partitioning-forms the focus of this study. Here, we apply traditional morphometric methods to the skulls of megaherbivorous dinosaurs from the Dinosaur Park Formation (upper Campanian) of Alberta to infer the ecomorphology of these animals and to test the niche partitioning hypothesis. We find evidence for niche partitioning not only among contemporaneous ankylosaurs, ceratopsids, and hadrosaurids, but also within these clades at the family and subfamily levels. Consubfamilial ceratopsids and hadrosaurids differ insignificantly in their inferred ecomorphologies, which may explain why they rarely overlap stratigraphically: interspecific competition prevented their coexistence.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Phylogenetic relationships of megaherbivorous dinosaurs from the Dinosaur Park Formation.
Suprageneric taxonomy: 1, Genasauria; 2, Ankylosauria; 3, Ankylosauridae; 4, Nodosauridae; 5, Cerapoda; 6, Ceratopsidae; 7, Centrosaurinae; 8, Chasmosaurinae; 9, Hadrosauridae; 10, Hadrosaurinae; 11, Lambeosaurinae. After Butler et al. , Prieto-Márquez , Sampson et al. , and Thompson et al. . Skeletal drawings (not to scale) by G. S. Paul (used with permission).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Linear measurements used in this study (compare with Table 1).
A, ankylosaur skull in left lateral (left) and caudal (right) views; B, ceratopsid skull in left lateral (left) and caudal (right) views; C, hadrosaurid skull in left lateral (left) and caudal (right) views.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Time-averaged DFAs.
A, coarse-scale analysis; B, ankylosaur family analysis; C, ceratopsid subfamily analysis; D, hadrosaurid subfamily analysis; E, hadrosaurid genus analysis.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Time-constrained MAZ-1 DFAs.
A, coarse-scale analysis; B, ceratopsid subfamily analysis; C, hadrosaurid subfamily analysis; D, hadrosaurid genus analysis.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Time-constrained MAZ-2 DFAs.
A, coarse-scale analysis; B, hadrosaurid analysis.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Depiction of dietary niche partitioning among megaherbivorous dinosaurs from the DPF (MAZ-2).
Left to right: Chasmosaurus belli, Lambeosaurus lambei, Styracosaurus albertensis, Euoplocephalus tutus, Prosaurolophus maximus, Panoplosaurus mirus. A herd of S. albertensis looms in the background. Image courtesy of J.T. Csotonyi.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. Mallon JC, Evans DC, Ryan MJ, Anderson JS (2013) Feeding height stratification among the herbivorous dinosaurs from the Dinosaur Park Formation (upper Campanian) of Alberta, Canada. BMC Ecology 13: 14 doi:10.1186/1472-6785-13-14 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

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