The group recently attended the 67th Palaeontological Association Annual Meeting in Cambridge where team members Amy Shipley and Meghan Jenkinson presented their research.
Amy presented a talk on Ecosystem structural changes following a marine megafaunal extinction, showing that Pleistocene marine communities in the North Atlantic displayed slight differences, in the form of less vertical complexity and decreased specialization, following the Pliocene Marine Megafaunal Extinction Event. However, the loss of the Otodus megalodon apex predator did not result in other top predators (i.e. Great White Sharks or Orcas) increasing in trophic level. Amy gave a phenomenal talk which resulted in her being Awarded the President’s Prize Talk Award. Well done Amy!
Meghan presented a poster on Patterns of marine benthic macrofaunal diversity across the late Pliensbachian, and early Toarcian (Lower Jurassic; ~183 million years ago) Oceanic Anoxic Event (TOAE, or Jenkyns Event) in the Llanbedr (Mochras Farm) borehole. Meghan had previously also presented this work at the Bivalves meeting (also in Cambridge) the week before.
See the PalAss23 abstract book for more details on either presentation and check out the #PalAss23 hashtag on Twitter for more updates from the conference.
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