Abstract

Diet has been identified as a major driver of reef fish lineage diversification, producing one of the most speciose vertebrate assemblages today. Yet, there is minimal understanding of how, when and why diet itself has evolved. To address this, we used a comprehensive gut content dataset, alongside a recently developed phylogenetic comparative method to assess multivariate prey use across a diverse animal assemblage, coral reef fishes. Specifically, we investigated the diversification, transitions and phylogenetic conservatism of fish diets through evolutionary time. We found two major pulses of diet diversification: one at the end-Cretaceous and one during the Eocene, suggesting that the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction probably provided the initial ecological landscape for fish diets to diversify. The birth of modern families during the Eocene then provided the foundation for a second wave of dietary expansion. Together, our findings showcase the role of extinction rebound events in shaping the dietary diversity of fishes on present-day coral reefs.

RAS ID

71913

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

8-28-2024

Volume

291

Issue

2029

Funding Information

James Cook University / Australian Research Council

PubMed ID

39191284

School

Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research / School of Science

Grant Number

ARC Number : FL19010006

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publisher

The Royal Society Publishing

Comments

Ng, I., Bellwood, D. R., Strugnell, J. M., Parravicini, V., & Siqueira, A. C. (2024). The rise of dietary diversity in coral reef fishes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 291(2029). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.1004

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1098/rspb.2024.1004