Credit: Henry Sharpeįirst author, Jorge García-Girón, Geography Research Unit, University of Oulu, Finland and Department of Biodiversity and Environmental Management, University of León, Spain, said: “Our study provides a compelling picture of the ecological structure, food webs, and niches of the last dinosaur-dominated ecosystems of the Cretaceous period and the first mammal-dominated ecosystems after the asteroid hit. Triceratops prorsus munching on cycads disturbs primitive cousins of placental (left) and marsupial (right) mammals in the underbrush- while a softshell turtle climbs up on a log, unaware that its freshwater ecology will shelter it from the impending doom from space. These behaviors probably helped them to survive, as they were better able than the dinosaurs to cope with the radical and abrupt destruction caused by the asteroid. They were creating their own advantages through diversifying – by occupying new ecological niches, evolving more varied diets and behaviors, and enduring small shifts in climate, by rapidly adapting.
Mammals didn’t just take advantage of the dinosaurs dying, experts say. Meanwhile, the dinosaurs were entrenched in stable niches to which they were supremely well adapted. However, this research reveals that these mammals were diversifying their diets, adapting to their environments, and becoming more important components of ecosystems as the Cretaceous unfolded. Researchers modeled the food chains and ecological habitats of land-living and freshwater animals during the last several million years of the Cretaceous, and the first few million years of the Paleogene period, after the asteroid hit.įor some time paleontologists have known that many small mammals lived alongside the dinosaurs.
Led by an international team of paleontologists and ecologists, the study analyzed 1,600 fossil records from North America. “Dinosaurs were going strong, with stable ecosystems, right until the asteroid suddenly killed them off.” - Professor Steve Brusatte
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