Morrison Formation: Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry food web and baby sauropods + Morrison Formation functional fauna network (free pdfs)
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Ben Creisler
Jan 30, 2026, 2:59:15 PM (3 days ago) Jan 30
to DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com
Ben Creisler
Free pdf:
Colin Boisvert, Tom T.P. van der Linden, Owen A. Goodchild, Adrian Boeye, Charlie Roger Scherer, Harry T. Jones, Tristan Moran, Zak Lewis, Kenneth Charles Rayburn, Collin Layton, Joshua Z. Wasserlauf, Caleb Bohus, Andy Danison, Alejandro Lopez-Vaca, Leroy K. Durrant, Chance Guest, Samuel Gascoigne, and Steven J.R. Allain (2026)
“Here, size is no accident”: A novel food web analysis of the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry and ecological impact of Morrison Formation sauropod fauna
In: Foster et al., 2026, New Developments in the Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 102: 387-426
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400003503_HERE_SIZE_IS_NO_ACCIDENT_A_NOVEL_FOOD_WEB_ANALYSIS_OF_THE_DRY_MESA_DINOSAUR_QUARRY_AND_ECOLOGICAL_IMPACT_OF_MORRISON_FORMATION_SAUROPOD_FAUNA
The Morrison Formation is a well-preserved Upper Jurassic rock unit with a characteristic terrestrial fauna. Despite over a century of study, the complex ecological interactions remain poorly understood due to preservational bias. Understanding the complex food webs of the Morrison Formation, despite this bias, is important. The preserved biota remains one of the most unique and diverse from the terrestrial fossil record, and reconstructing ecological interactions across deep time remains understudied. Here we present the reconstructed trophic links and food web of Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry, a relatively well-preserved Morrison Formation ecosystem, using the R package cheddar. We recovered a complex food web with over 12,000 unique food chains. Sauropods had substantially more trophic interactions than their ornithischian counterparts, indicating a substantial and important role in the ecosystem. The ubiquity and diversity of sauropods throughout the ecosystem across deposition, combined with the large body size they attained, underscores their importance as ecosystem engineers. Reconstructing the food web of an extinct ecosystem is an important tool for understanding phylogeny and broader biological concepts, as it provides insight into how ancient organisms interacted, evolved, and influenced each other’s adaptations. By understanding trophic links and interactions, the ecological roles and evolutionary pressures that shaped species traits and lineages over time could potentially be determined. This novel food web is the first study of its kind to use trophic analysis to examine Morrison Formation ecological interactions, paving the way for other deep-time food web analyses.
***
News:
Baby dinosaurs were common prey for Late Jurassic predators, reconstructed food web suggests
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-baby-dinosaurs-common-prey-late.html
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Free pdf:
Cassius Morrison, William Jude Hart, Tom T.P. van der Linden, Adrian Boeye, Ezekiel V. O’Callaghan, Colin Boisvert, Harry Gordon, Tom Trapman, Harry T. Jones, Owen Goodchild, Chance Guest, Zak Lewis, Kenneth Charles Rayburn, Collin Layton, Caleb Bohus, Andy Danison, Tristan Moran, Paul J. Byrne, Samuel Gascoigne, and Steven J.R. Allain (2026)
A functional fauna network analysis of the Morrison Formation
In: Foster et al., 2026, New Developments in the Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 102: 427-439
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400003205_A_FUNCTIONAL_FAUNA_NETWORK_ANALYSIS_OF_THE_MORRISON_FORMATION
Although a great diversity of vertebrate taxa are known from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation, the structure of the ecological relationships between taxa remains unclear. Herein, we conducted a bipartite network analysis on the Morrison Formation fauna using ecomorphological traits of vertebrates: size class (mass), dietary guilds, and habitual tiering. Our results support local environments and habitat diversity as the driving cause of functional fauna disparity, but dinosaurian functional fauna throughout the formation was stable. These results support heterogeneity within the Morrison Formation, where a mosaic of similar yet separate local paleoenvironments was a major driver of species diversity. Our findings suggest that the Morrison Formation was a stable ecosystem throughout geological time, with different species undertaking similar functional roles despite taxonomic turnover. Utilizing a functional fauna approach for paleoecology allows for the study of ecosystems over time and can assess the distinction between faunal turnover and ecosystem functional changes.
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More Morrison Formation papers:
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Free pdf:
Colin Boisvert, Tom T.P. van der Linden, Owen A. Goodchild, Adrian Boeye, Charlie Roger Scherer, Harry T. Jones, Tristan Moran, Zak Lewis, Kenneth Charles Rayburn, Collin Layton, Joshua Z. Wasserlauf, Caleb Bohus, Andy Danison, Alejandro Lopez-Vaca, Leroy K. Durrant, Chance Guest, Samuel Gascoigne, and Steven J.R. Allain (2026)
“Here, size is no accident”: A novel food web analysis of the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry and ecological impact of Morrison Formation sauropod fauna
In: Foster et al., 2026, New Developments in the Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 102: 387-426
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400003503_HERE_SIZE_IS_NO_ACCIDENT_A_NOVEL_FOOD_WEB_ANALYSIS_OF_THE_DRY_MESA_DINOSAUR_QUARRY_AND_ECOLOGICAL_IMPACT_OF_MORRISON_FORMATION_SAUROPOD_FAUNA
The Morrison Formation is a well-preserved Upper Jurassic rock unit with a characteristic terrestrial fauna. Despite over a century of study, the complex ecological interactions remain poorly understood due to preservational bias. Understanding the complex food webs of the Morrison Formation, despite this bias, is important. The preserved biota remains one of the most unique and diverse from the terrestrial fossil record, and reconstructing ecological interactions across deep time remains understudied. Here we present the reconstructed trophic links and food web of Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry, a relatively well-preserved Morrison Formation ecosystem, using the R package cheddar. We recovered a complex food web with over 12,000 unique food chains. Sauropods had substantially more trophic interactions than their ornithischian counterparts, indicating a substantial and important role in the ecosystem. The ubiquity and diversity of sauropods throughout the ecosystem across deposition, combined with the large body size they attained, underscores their importance as ecosystem engineers. Reconstructing the food web of an extinct ecosystem is an important tool for understanding phylogeny and broader biological concepts, as it provides insight into how ancient organisms interacted, evolved, and influenced each other’s adaptations. By understanding trophic links and interactions, the ecological roles and evolutionary pressures that shaped species traits and lineages over time could potentially be determined. This novel food web is the first study of its kind to use trophic analysis to examine Morrison Formation ecological interactions, paving the way for other deep-time food web analyses.
***
News:
Baby dinosaurs were common prey for Late Jurassic predators, reconstructed food web suggests
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-baby-dinosaurs-common-prey-late.html
=====
Free pdf:
Cassius Morrison, William Jude Hart, Tom T.P. van der Linden, Adrian Boeye, Ezekiel V. O’Callaghan, Colin Boisvert, Harry Gordon, Tom Trapman, Harry T. Jones, Owen Goodchild, Chance Guest, Zak Lewis, Kenneth Charles Rayburn, Collin Layton, Caleb Bohus, Andy Danison, Tristan Moran, Paul J. Byrne, Samuel Gascoigne, and Steven J.R. Allain (2026)
A functional fauna network analysis of the Morrison Formation
In: Foster et al., 2026, New Developments in the Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 102: 427-439
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400003205_A_FUNCTIONAL_FAUNA_NETWORK_ANALYSIS_OF_THE_MORRISON_FORMATION
Although a great diversity of vertebrate taxa are known from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation, the structure of the ecological relationships between taxa remains unclear. Herein, we conducted a bipartite network analysis on the Morrison Formation fauna using ecomorphological traits of vertebrates: size class (mass), dietary guilds, and habitual tiering. Our results support local environments and habitat diversity as the driving cause of functional fauna disparity, but dinosaurian functional fauna throughout the formation was stable. These results support heterogeneity within the Morrison Formation, where a mosaic of similar yet separate local paleoenvironments was a major driver of species diversity. Our findings suggest that the Morrison Formation was a stable ecosystem throughout geological time, with different species undertaking similar functional roles despite taxonomic turnover. Utilizing a functional fauna approach for paleoecology allows for the study of ecosystems over time and can assess the distinction between faunal turnover and ecosystem functional changes.
=====
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